7:55am Monday 20th June 2005
By Pete Henshaw
A RARE signed first edition of the 1933 book Lost Horizon, written by James Hilton at his Woodford Green home, is expected to sell for £2,200 when it is auctioned this month.
The copy of the book, which has been described by auctioneer Christie's as very scarce', was given by Hilton to someone named H.B.Smith and is signed: "H.B.Smith, sincerely James Hilton."
It will go for auction at the Rockefeller Plaza in New York on Wednesday, June 29.
The valuable lot is among 425 books, including many first editions and many signed novels, which belong to millionaire American businessman and lawyer Donald Drapkin and which are all being auctioned.
Mr Drapkin's library containing his copy of Lost Horizon is expected to fetch up to $2.3m, around £1.3m, at the Christie's sale.
Hilton, born in 1900, lived during his childhood and teens in Walthamstow where his father was head teacher of Chapel End School. He then moved to two addresses in Woodford Green.
The first, in Oak Hill Gardens, is where he penned Lost Horizons and also the famous Goodbye Mr Chips.
That house now has a blue plaque in Hilton's memory.
He later lived at a house called Ingoldsby, which has since been renamed James Hilton House.
Lost Horizon is about an imaginary paradise in Tibet, a mythical kingdom called Shangri-La. The book won the prestigious Hawthorne Prize in 1933, and was turned into a 1937 film starring Ronald Colman.
Hilton is also famous for his novel Goodbye Mr Chips, written in just four days for the 1933 Christmas edition of the British Weekly.
It was printed as a novel the following year. The character in the book was partly modelled on his own father, John, and on Mr Topliss, who taught him Latin, English and history at Sir George Monoux Grammar School (now sixth form college), which was then in High Street, Walthamstow.
The third strand in the characterisation of Mr Chips was another teacher at the famous Leys School in Cambridge.
This novel cemented Hilton's reputation and he soon left for Hollywood, where he was in high demand to write, and to produce screenplays.
Hilton eventually won an Oscar for his work on the screenplay of the 1942 film Mrs Miniver starring Greer Garson.
James Hilton died in 1954 in California, aged 54, and is buried in Virginia.
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