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Lot 542
An annotated final draft manuscript of Lost Horizon Hilton, James (1900-1954).
30 November 2016, 12:00 EST
New YorkUS$50,000 - US$70,000
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An annotated final draft manuscript of Lost Horizon
Hilton, James (1900-1954). Typed carbon manuscript, 257 pp, 4to, annotated throughout by Hilton and his editors, with Hilton's original working title Blue Moon written to first leaf and signed ("James Hilton"); pages are hand-numbered and have four binder holes punched to left borders, lacking 3 1/2 paragraphs from the novel's epilogue (approximately 4 pp typed), housed in a custom 1/4 morocco slipcase. WITH: a group of 4 original 8 x 10 in photographs from the film Lost Horizon (Columbia, 1937), 2 stamped "Photo by / Alfredo Valente / Columbia Studios," Advertising Advisory Council approval stamps dated June 1936, and with other notations to versos.
This is one of three surviving manuscripts of James Hilton's classic anti-war novel about Shangri-La, a utopian paradise hidden deep in the Himalayas. It was first published in 1933, simultaneously by MacMillan and Co. in the United Kingdom and William Morrow in the United States. Lifted by the success of Hilton's Goodbye Mr. Chips (1934), Lost Horizon became a bestseller, and the term "Shangri-La" entered the popular lexicon; the novel also became the basis for Frank Capra's eponymous 1937 film classic starring Ronald Colman. In 1939, the novel achieved historical significance as the first book to be released as a mass-market paperback; the enormous popularity of its paperback edition over the ensuing decades made the American edition, as reflected in this manuscript, the novel's standard text. This manuscript includes various authorial revisions, corrections, deletions, and insertions in black ink, including textual alterations reflected in the novel's first edition. There are also corrections in blue and regular pencil, made by Hilton's editors at William Morrow, who, among other alterations, made some of the dialogue sound more authentically American. This copy of the manuscript was returned to Hilton by his editors; the other two manuscripts were acquired by Frank Capra and later were acquired by the Pennsylvania State University manuscript archive.
Provenance: "The Papers of James Hilton," Christie's, November 18, 1999, Lot 83.
This is one of three surviving manuscripts of James Hilton's classic anti-war novel about Shangri-La, a utopian paradise hidden deep in the Himalayas. It was first published in 1933, simultaneously by MacMillan and Co. in the United Kingdom and William Morrow in the United States. Lifted by the success of Hilton's Goodbye Mr. Chips (1934), Lost Horizon became a bestseller, and the term "Shangri-La" entered the popular lexicon; the novel also became the basis for Frank Capra's eponymous 1937 film classic starring Ronald Colman. In 1939, the novel achieved historical significance as the first book to be released as a mass-market paperback; the enormous popularity of its paperback edition over the ensuing decades made the American edition, as reflected in this manuscript, the novel's standard text. This manuscript includes various authorial revisions, corrections, deletions, and insertions in black ink, including textual alterations reflected in the novel's first edition. There are also corrections in blue and regular pencil, made by Hilton's editors at William Morrow, who, among other alterations, made some of the dialogue sound more authentically American. This copy of the manuscript was returned to Hilton by his editors; the other two manuscripts were acquired by Frank Capra and later were acquired by the Pennsylvania State University manuscript archive.
Provenance: "The Papers of James Hilton," Christie's, November 18, 1999, Lot 83.