Source: Wikipedia

James Hilton (September 9, 1900 - December 20, 1954) was a popular English novelist of the first half of the 20th century.

Born in Leigh, Lancashire, England on 9 September 1900, he was the son of John Hilton, the headmaster of Chapel End School in Walthamstow, who was one of the inspirations for Mr Chipping in Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The setting for Goodbye, Mr. Chips is believed to have been based on the Leys School, Cambridge where James Hilton was a pupil. Mr Chipping is also likely to have been based on W.H. Balgarnie, one of the masters of the school who was in charge of the Leys Fortnightly (where Hilton's first short stories and essays were published).

Hilton found literary success at an early age. His first novel, Catherine Herself, was published in 1920. Several of his books found a new audience through film adaptations, notably Lost Horizon (1933), which won a Hawthornden Prize; Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934); and Random Harvest (1941). Hilton won an Oscar in 1942 for his work on the screenplay of Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther. He hosted The Hallmark Playhouse (1948-1953) for CBS Radio. Hilton's only mystery novel was Murder at School, aka Was It Murder?, published under the pseudonym Glen Trevor, which is an entry on the Haycraft-Queen Cornerstone List of essential mystery works. He also published some mystery short stories.

Hilton popularised the term Shangri-La in his novel Lost Horizon, which may have been inspired by the Tibetan travel articles of explorer Joseph Rock. US President Roosevelt soon named his presidential retreat "Shangri-La" after it, and the name has become a byword for a mythical utopia -- a permanently happy land, isolated from the world. Zhongdian, a mountain region of southwest China, has now renamed itself Shangri-La (Xianggelila) based on its claim to have inspired Hilton's book.

Hilton was married and divorced twice, to Galina Kopineck and Alice Brown. He died in Long Beach, California, from liver cancer on December 20, 1954, aged 54.

Murder at School and other Hilton books are available from Project Gutenberg.

Bibliography

"The King of the Bats" (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March 1953)

"The Mallet" (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, September 1942; rpt. in To The Queen's Taste, ed. Ellery Queen, 1946)

Murder at School

"The Perfect Plan" (Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, March 1946)