Estimate: | £300 - £500 |
Hammer price: | £260 |
HILTON, James (1900-54). Lost Horizon. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1933, 8vo (191 x 130mm). Half title. Original black cloth with circular blind-stamped illustration on upper cover, spine lettered in gilt (corners lightly rubbed), dust-jacket, the upper cover light blue, both wrappers lettered in dark blue (some chipping and fraying to edges with slight loss to head of backstrip). Provenance: [?]Rich [?]Dunlap (signature on front free endpaper). FIRST AMERICAN EDITION of the author's fantasy novel which introduced the notion of "Shrangri-La" and upon which Frank Capra based his film of the same name in 1937, with the rare second-issue dust-jacket headed "Hawthornden Prize Edition." Hilton won the "Hawthornden Prize" for Lost Horizon in 1934; the American publisher replaced the original dust-jackets on their unsold stock of the first American edition, issued in the same year as the first U.K. edition, with the present jacket which prominently mentions the prize. Cf. Bleiler (1978), p.100; Moorcock Fantasy: The 100 Best Books 45.