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Nothing So Strange

(1947)
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He shook his head. "But I love the way you ask. You remind me of the priest who heard a confession of murder and merely asked very calmly 'How many murders, my son?' Not that the parallel fits me, but I think it does you."
"It might. Or maybe I'm just remembering Daniel Webster's remark that there's nothing so strange as truth. I can always imagine you getting into the most complicated trouble from the highest possible motives. I'm capable of doing that myself, that's why it doesn't shock me so much."

'Nothing So Strange' is the story of a young American scientist Bradley and a young girl Jane Warning. Brad was in a big trouble and Jane supported him with all her head and heart. When eighteen years old Jane first met Dr. Mark Bradley, aged twenty-four, in London, though failed to fall flat on love at first sight but she and her mother were attracted by Brad, a reserve and hesitant scientist in a party given by one of her college professors. It was just a curiosity to know more about him and his work. Brad's association and involvement with a Viennese physicist, who becomes great by stealing the ideas of Brad and his other juniors, proved problematic, almost tragic for him in which Jane's love makes the things better. The story truly justifies its title, "Nothing so strange as the truth."

James Hilton was born on September 9, 1900 in Leigh, Lancashire. His father, John Hilton was a schoolmaster and his mother, Elizabeth had been a schoolmistress before her marriage. James attended the George Monoux School in Walthamstow, London before attending Leys School, Cambridge, where he was a student from 1915 to 1918. In Leys, he edited and contributed to the school magazine. He studied English and History at Christ's College, Cambridge and his first novel, Catherine Herself, was published in 1920 while he was still an undergraduate.
He left university in 1921 and became a freelance journalist, wrote articles, book reviews and worked on a number of his novels which had no commercial success until the publication of And Now Goodbye in 1931. In 1933 he wrote Lost Horizon which won the Hawthornden Prize in 1934.
In 1933 Hilton was asked to write a 3,000 word short story for the magazine The British Weekly. After a week without inspiration he suddenly had an idea to write the story of the much-loved schoolmaster which he entitled Goodbye, Mr. Chip! It was an immediate success both in Britain and America and by early 1934 Hilton was a best-selling author. There was an insatiable appetite to read his work and all of his earlier novels were reprinted on popular demand.
In 1935, Hilton married his English wife, Alice Brown, and left for the film capital Hollywood where, at first, he found the glitter of "Tinseltown" to be congenial. Many of his books became world-wide hit movies, most notably Lost Horizon (1937), Goodbye Mr Chips (1939) and Random Harvest (1942).
Hilton became established as a sought-after Hollywood scriptwriter and contributed to the Greer Garson wartime classic Mrs. Miniver. He was a popular figure in Hollywood and counted Frank Capra, Ronald Coleman and Greer Garson amongst his friends and won the Best Screenplay Oscar for Mrs. Miniver in 1942. Sadly, his first marriage ended in divorce in 1937 and he married Galina Kopineck, a young starlet. This marriage also proved volatile and Hilton again divorced eight years later. He continued to write best-selling novels during and after the Second World War including Random Harvest, So Well Remembered and Time and Time Again. On December 20, 1954 Hilton died in hospital in Long Beach, California of liver cancer. By this time his first wife, Alice, had been reconciled with him and nursed him till his death.


Genre: Mystery

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