Books with author Aldous Huxley

Huxley’s first collection of short stories contains seven visionary and satirical tales, which introduces themes that will go on to form the basis of his entire works. The events and the protagonists of these stories, with their personalities falling between the explicit and the elusive, are also rich in parallels and points in common with the life of their author. In The Death of Lully a woman is struck by breast cancer, the disease that killed the young author’s mother to whom he was very close; and suicide as that of his brother, recurs in Eupompus Gave Splendour To Art By Numbers. Among all, however, Farcical History Of Richard Greenow takes the form of an autobiography, from the setting to the events described, there are many points of contact between the protagonist and that of the author: like a new Dr Jekyll’s alter ego protagonist (and the same Huxley) will face his personal Mr. Hyde, in the staging of the struggle between two different and irreconcilable ways of thinking about literature and civic engagement.

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey, on 26th July 1894.He was educated for a time by his mother and then entered Oxford University and obtained a degree in English Literature.As a young man he contracted the eye disease keratitis punctate, that left him, to all intents, blind for almost three years until partial sight was restored. It was to trouble him for the rest of his life.During the First World War, Huxley spent much of his time at Garsington Manor, near Oxford, working as a farm labourer where he met several members of the Bloomsbury set. In 1919 he met and quickly married the Belgian refugee Maria Nys. Their son, Matthew, was born on 19th April 1920.By now he had written several volumes of poetry and some short stories. Now he pursued novels.In ‘Crome Yellow’ (1921) he caricatured the Garsington lifestyle. He followed up with further social satires, ‘Antic Hay’ (1923), ‘Those Barren Leaves’ (1925), and ‘Point Counter Point’ (1928).In 1937 Huxley moved to Hollywood with his wife and child. He would live in the U.S., mainly in southern California, and for a time in Taos, New Mexico, until his death. As a Hollywood screenwriter Huxley used much of his earnings to bring Jewish and left-wing writer and artist refugees from Hitler's Germany to the US. He worked for many of the major studios including MGM and Disney. In 1953, Huxley and Maria applied for United States citizenship. When Huxley refused to bear arms for the U.S. and would not state his objections, he had to withdraw his application. Nevertheless, he remained in the U.S. In the spring of 1953, Huxley had his first experience with the psychedelic drug mescaline. Undoubtedly, he was drawn to their mind-altering powers and was a firm believer thereafter.In 1955, Maria Huxley died of cancer.The following year, 1956, Huxley married Laura Archera, also an author, as well as a violinist and psychotherapist. She would later write ‘This Timeless Moment’, a biography of Huxley.Huxley was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in 1960; in the years that followed, with his health deteriorating, he wrote the Utopian novel ‘Island’, and gave lectures on "Human Potentialities". On his deathbed, unable to speak due to advanced laryngeal cancer, Huxley made a written request to Laura for "LSD, 100 µg, intramuscular." She obliged with an injection at 11:20 a.m. and a second dose an hour later; Aldous Leonard Huxley died aged 69, at 5:20 p.m. on 22nd November 1963.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune Aldous Huxley is rightly considered a prophetic genius and one of the most important literary and philosophical voices of the 20th Century, and Brave New World is his masterpiece. From the author of The Doors of Perception, Island, and countless other works of fiction, non-fiction, philosophy, and poetry, comes this powerful work of speculative fiction that has enthralled and terrified readers for generations. Brave New World remains absolutely relevant to this day as both a cautionary dystopian tale in the vein of the George Orwell classic 1984, and as thought-provoking, thoroughly satisfying entertainment.

This is one of the best collections of essays that Mr. Huxley has ever made. The title-piece is a completely new departure in technique from anything he has written before: a meditation, darting from topic to topic, on the olive tree, and the associations which it has for the author. His now famous Introduction to the letters of D.H. Lawrence is included; there is an essay entitled ‘Justifications’ which gives comic instances of the rationalisation of irrational impulses, and analyses the mechanism of justification; there is an essay on Thomas Henry Huxley as a literary man—and as anyone who has read the Diary of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake can testify, the great scientist's charm and craftsmanship were both considerable—a long essay which considers the influence of books and propaganda; an essay on ‘English Snobbery’, ‘Time and the Machine’ and other diverse subjects, all of which are treated with the wit and the learning to which Mr. Huxley has made us accustomed.