HAWTHORNDEN PEIZE

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 36, 11 August 1934, Page 24

HAWTHORNDEN PEIZE

AWARD TO "LOST HORIZON"

The book selected by the committee of the Hawthorndcn Prize for the 1934 award is "Lost Horizon," by James Hilton. In making tho announcement ana presenting the prize at the Aeolian Hall, London, Lord Winterton said that ho had read the book with tho greatest interest. It dealt with some very striking events. In the first chapter there was a veiled reference to Kabul, and one could read also an admirablo account of flying across difficult country. He (tho speaker) had had experience of flying across India, and the description given by Mr. Hilton was thrilling. Sir Richard Paget said ho thought .the description in "Lost Horizon" admirable and vivid, and tho story itself, which was highly imaginative, flowed smoothly and . even convincingly. Ho made three criticisms, one of which concerned tho author's use of- tho word "whom." That word, he said, was a constant source of trouble. It was a very un-English word, for the genius of English lay in doing away .with. Germanic terminal inflexions, and he would like to see "whom" permanently buried and "who" reigning in its stead., He would also like to bury theabsurd and cacophonous terminal "s" in the third person singular and to say, "I go, you go, he go," just as we said, "I can, you can, he can"—not "he cans" (except in the canning industry). The terminal "s," like the terminal "m" in "whom," was a relic of barbarism. When he was very rich he would give a thumping prize for tho best book written in pure English, with the relics of baibarism wiped out. Miss Alice Warrondcv, who founded tho Hawthornden Prize- in 1919, said "Lost Horizon" was a beautiful book that took one into a strungo region of peace. Sho announced that she had now made arrangements for the Hawthorndon Prize to bo continued after her death. .

. The author of "Lost Horizon," Mr. James Hilton, started his literary career just after tho war with "Cathorine Herself," written when lio was 20, and the best-known of other novels he has published aro "Contango" and "Knight Without Armour." He wrote "Lost Horizon," which had a Tibetan setting, without ever having been to India or Tibet.