Stuck for that perfect Christmas gift? (From East London and West Essex Guardian Series)

Stuck for that perfect Christmas gift?

1:46pm Wednesday 3rd December 2008

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How about a £20,000 book?

Perfect for that fussy friend or relative for whom it's just impossible to find the right present.

Yes, £20,000 is the top price expected for the original manuscript of 1933 novel Lost Horizon when it goes under the hammer at Sotheby's later this month.

Heard of it? No?

Well, maybe you have and I'm just a philistine (no need to agree or disagree) but at any rate, I hadn't when the story came to us. And neither had very many other people, apparently, or at least in Waltham Forest.

It is, however, the book that brought mythical utopia Shangri-La into the collective consciousness and was penned by former Waltham Forest resident James Hilton, who also wrote Goodbye, Mr Chips.

You'll have heard of that one, I'm sure - even I'd heard of it.

Both titles were written while the author was living at a non-descript semi in Oak Hill Gardens, Woodford Green (the Waltham Forest bit, of course) during the 1930s. What's more, the tale of the cuddly schoolmaster reportedly has echoes of Hilton's own father, who was the headmaster at Chapel End School, Walthamstow, at the turn of the twentieth century.

So there you go.

Sadly, however, after much phoning around and trawling of Teh Interweb and even trudging up to the house itself in the freezing rain to try and speak to whoever lives there now (ruining a pair of shoes in the process. Shock! Horror!) it proved pretty much impossible to turn up anyone who knew anything about him.

It was therefore a matter of returning to Teh Interweb, gathering as many facts as possible, and piecing them together in at least a vaguely coherent format.

Nonetheless, if you have heard of the good Mr Hilton and you've got a spare fifteen or twenty grand taking up space in your bank account, you can check out the merchandise here and pop along to Sotheby's, New Bond Street on December 17 to have a crack at it.

To conclude this week, I just thought I'd mention that this will be my last blog for two weeks as, from Monday, I'm using up the rest of my statutory holiday time - cause for despair or celebration, depending on how you look at it.

No, I am not asking you how you look at it.