Claudine West, George Froeschel and Arthur Wimperis adapted the novel for the screen, and received an Academy Award nomination for their work.

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.

Charles and Mrs. 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.

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.

Escaping from the asylum as the end of the Great War is being celebrated, he goes into Melbury, where he is rescued by a young woman just as he is on the point of being reported.

After an abortive stage appearance of his own and a brief resumption of his mental illness in which he assaults a man in the street, 'Smith' escapes to a small village named Beachings Over.

Paula easily tracks him down, however, and aware that the authorities may still be pursuing him after the assault, they move to London, where they are befriended by Blampied, a kindly parson.

Her motives and anxieties are revealed to the audience through discussions with Dr. Jonathan Benet, Smith's psychiatrist from the asylum, a character original to the film.

Thus, at the end of the film, it is only to Charles Rainier / Smithy that Paula's true identity is revealed, and there is never any uncertainty that she is his lost love.

The novel is set in the years immediately following World War I, when shellshock—a term invented to describe the devastating effects of life in the trenches and exposure to concussive explosions on survivors of that war—was a matter of great concern.

A theme common to this and James Hilton's other novels is lost innocence – here, the destructive effects of two world wars on England – and a concomitant yearning to return to apparently simpler times.

Hilton draws parallels between Rainier's ability to sense impending doom but inability to do anything about it and British governmental paralysis in responding to Hitler's manoeuvres preceding the outbreak of the Second World War.

Takarazuka Revue, an all-female opera company in Japan, adopted the novel into a musical play in 1992, starring Mira Anju.

The 1942 film version was spoofed on The Carol Burnett Show as "Rancid Harvest" (Season 6, Ep 24, 24 March 1973) with Carol Burnett decked out in a red plaid cape and tam-o-shanter as Greer Garson (Paula) desperately trying to jog the memory of Harvey Korman as Ronald Colman (Charles Rainier).