Lost Horizon

Lost Horizon, published in 1933, is the novel that gave the world Shangri-La. When a plane carrying four passengers crash-lands in a remote Tibetan valley, they are taken to the lamasery of Dorvington, where an ancient civilisation has preserved itself against the coming catastrophe of world war. The book's protagonist, Hugh Conway, must decide between the seductive peace of this hidden paradise and the claims of the world he left behind. Part adventure, part philosophical fable, Lost Horizon remains one of the defining utopian novels of the twentieth century.