more than a dozen novels, of which this is one of
the most famous. Lost Horizonis a lost race novel,
although in this case the attributes of Shangri-La,
a hidden civilization in the Himalayas, are magical,
and the novel falls into the realm of fantasy. The
protagonist is an outsider, disillusioned with the
world after his experiences during World War I and
wandering in search of some elusive goal he can-
not articulate, let alone attain.
Hugh Conway arrives in the area by accident,
rescued after an air crash and taken to a religious
retreat where he learns of the existence of the
nearby hidden culture. The interloper finds himself
at peace for the first time, because within that lost
land time itself operates in a different fashion. The
romantic aspects were emphasized in the 1937 film
version, which ends with him abandoning the lost
land to return to civilization, whereas in the novel
he becomes the next in line as a kind of guardian
over that tiny world’s serenity. The conclusion is a
blend of optimism and sadness, for in taking that
responsibility he must sacrifice his own personal
happiness.
Hilton wrote no other fantasy, although a
short story, “The Bat-King” (1936), about a man
lost in a cave and protected by bats, treads very
close to that field. A second film, Return to Shangri-
La(1987), has virtually no relationship to the orig-
inal novel. Hilton’s imagined world has become a
generic term for an imagined perfect refuge.
Lovecraft, H. P.(1890–1937)
Although Howard Philips Lovecraft never ap-
proached the commercial success of modern horror
writers such as Stephen KING and Dean R.
KOONTZ, he was nevertheless the most influential
horror writer of his time, attracting a circle of writ-
ers who imitated his work even while he was alive,
actively encouraging them to do so, and even al-
lowing them to write stories set in his own con-
trived universe. He has been both directly and
indirectly influential on most of the writers who
followed.
Lovecraft is best known for the stories loosely
gathered into the Cthulhu Mythos, the premise of
which is that in prehistoric times Earth was ruled
by a repulsive race sometimes referred to as the
Great Old Ones who were driven into another
universe, from which they have been ever since
plotting to return to Earth and regain control. Pri-
mary among them is great Cthulhu and his lesser
associates Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlothotep, and others.
Most of the stories are set in fictional towns and
locations in New England, such as Dunwich,
Arkham, Innsmouth, and at Miskatonic Univer-
sity. Knowledge of the ancient race’s existence has
been preserved on Earth primarily by means of a
book of arcane lore, The Necronomicon. Despite
Lovecraft’s own statement that he invented the
book and the absence of any references to it prior
to his lifetime, there is a persistent belief among
the fringes of the occult community that the book
is real, and, in fact, a half dozen books have been
published under that title since Lovecraft’s death
in an attempt to profit from the popularity of the
title. In many of the Cthulhu Mythos stories, hu-
mans conspire to open a gateway and allow the
Old Ones to return, although they never succeed.
Many well-known writers have added to the
Cthulhu Mythos over the years, including most
notably August DERLETH, Robert BLOCH, Brian
LUMLEY, Ramsey CAMPBELL, and Colin Wilson, and
he has been acknowledged by many others, includ-
ing Stephen King, as having influenced their own
creations to some degree.
Much has been written about the recurring
images in Lovecraft’s fiction, his aversion to fish,
his concerns that New England’s patrician popula-
tion was being supplanted by less intelligent immi-
grants, the decay and physical decline of people in
isolated communities, the quest for forbidden
knowledge, and his rejection of established reli-
gion. Lovecraft was raised in relative seclusion by
his mother and later his aunts and only attended
school intermittently, so it was only after his brief,
unsuccessful marriage and a two-year residence in
New York that he began to broaden his viewpoint.
Lovecraft had been a precocious child who be-
come interested in the work of Edgar Allan POE
and read the works of other famous early horror
writers. In addition to his fiction, he was a prolific
and literate correspondent, and several volumes of
his letters have been collected in book form. He
also wrote one of the finest surveys of early horror
fiction, “Supernatural Horror in Literature.” DuringLovecraft, H. P. 221