James Hilton

James Hilton was born on September 9th, 1900 in Lancashire, England. The son of the headmaster of a school, Hilton began writing while attending Christ's College in Cambridge. The novel, "Catherine Herself" (1920) did not see much success.

He was awarded an honors degree in English literature and went on to publish more novels such as "Storm passage" (1922), "Dawn of Reckoning" (1925) and "Meadows of the Moon" (1926) in the next few years. These years were difficult for Hilton, as his writing career was still not taking off. He worked as a journalist for the 'Manchester Guardian' and later for the Daily Telegraph during this time.

In 1931, Hilton finally had a hit book on his hands with "And Now Goodbye," a mystery novel about a train crash where two unaccounted for bodies turn up. After this, Hilton started to see more international fame and his 1933 novel, "Lost Horizon" was soon turned into a feature film. In 1934, he wrote his other well-known novel, "Goodbye, Mr. Chips", a novella about the life of a schoolteacher.

In 1935, at the age of 35, he married Alice Brown only to divorce her two years later. He was married and divorced once more to a woman named Galina Kopernak. Hilton also wrote several screenplays and won an Oscar in 1942 for his work on "Mrs. Miniver" a film based on the novel by Jan Struther. In his life, he wrote 19 novels as well as many plays, short stories, non-fiction novels, and screenplays.

He died at the age of 54 in Long Beach, California from liver cancer.