The story of Lost Horizon is simple: a group of travellers are stranded in the Himalayas and they encounter a remote monastery named Shangri-La and the wonderful people who live there. Before that point, Hilton includes a prologue and two lengthy chapters of set-up. The prologue gives the reader a framing story: some British characters are discussing a man named Conway and how he mysteriously disappeared for a few years. Conway was a Renaissance man at Oxford, smart, athletic, and artistic, but for some reason, he accepted a post in India. No one heard from him for a while, and then he turned up as an amnesiac at a hospital somewhere in China. As he gradually recovered his memory, he told his story to a man named Rutherford, and Rutherford passes along this manuscript to his friend with the warning that it will be hard to believe.