Under the poor leadership of Charles' older brother Chetwynd (Chet), Rainier shares dwindle in worth until Charles has to take control of the company to save it from bankruptcy. Prompted by the family lawyer, each of the Rainier heirs agrees to give up a portion of their inheritance to Charles, so he may have an equal share. The family gathers to pay their last respects, and included is 14-year-old Kitty, stepdaughter of Charles' elder sister Jill. Shortly afterwards, Charles receives word that his father has died and returns home. Rainier so he can change his will back and include Charles, who had been assumed dead. Told by the doctor that the shock of his return could be fatal to his father, Charles decides to leave his home to lessen the risk to his father, despite the fact that the family lawyer insists on telling the senior Mr. Rainier's tale is told in the form of the third person (although Harrison is recounting it) and relates his return to Stourton, where he learns his father is gravely ill. One night Rainier recounts his story to Harrison, from the time he woke up in Liverpool in 1919, having lost two years of his life. Rainier ("Helen" in the novel) reside at Stourton, their country manor west of London, where she is the perfect hostess, and a young man named Woburn has been hired to catalogue the family library. The novel starts in 1937, and is narrated by Charles Rainier's secretary, Mr. The book is prefaced with this quote: '.German Official Report: "According to a British Official report, bombs fell at Random"'. It is told in the first person by Harrison, and by means of two extended external analepses tells the story of Charles Rainier, a wealthy businessman and politician, from the time he was invalided out of the army during World War I, his subsequent memory loss and partial recovery, his assuming control of the family business to his attempts to recover his memory just as Hitler invades Poland. It is set in the period immediately after the outbreak of the first World War. The novel is divided, not into chapters, but five large parts. ![]() Though the film departs from the novel's narrative in several significant ways, the novel's surprise ending, cleverly built on inferences drawn by the reader, would not work in a visual medium. Claudine West, George Froeschel and Arthur Wimperis adapted the novel for the screen, and received an Academy Award nomination for their work. The novel was successfully adapted into a film of the same name in 1942 under the direction of Mervyn LeRoy. Chips, the novel was immensely popular, placing second on Publishers Weekly list of best-selling novels for the year, and it was published as an Armed Services Edition during WWII. Like previous Hilton works, including Lost Horizon and Goodbye, Mr. ![]() Random Harvest is a novel written by James Hilton, first published in 1941.
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