Huxley, Aldous, 1894-1963

Epithet: novelist

Aldous Huxley was a British novelist, short-story writer, playwright, screenwriter, literary and social critic, and poet.

English author of novels, short stories, essays, plays, poetry, screenplays, and travel works.

Aldous Huxley was an English novelist and essayist, the grandson of T H Huxley. He studied at Oxford, lived mainly in Italy in the 1920s, where he befriended D H Lawrence. Early writing included poetry, short stories, and literary journalism, but his reputation was made with his satirical novels. Later novels include Point Counter Point (1928) and his best-known work, Brave New World (1932). His later writing became more mystical, as in Eyeless in Gaza (1936) and Time Must Have a Stop (1944), while Island (1962) is utopian.

English novelist and essayist.

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894 in Surrey, England; a disease of the eyes permanently weakened his vision at age 16, and disrupted his plan to enter the medical profession; BA, Balliol College, Oxford, 1916; employed by the British government during WWI; schoolmaster at Eton College, 1917-19; staff member of Athenaeum and Westminster gazette, 1919-24; published his first novel, Crome yellow, in 1921; went on to write Point counter point (1928), Brave new world (1932), Eyeless in Gaza (1936), and Island (1962), among others; was a prolific writer of essays, poetry, criticism, and scrrenplays; received D. Litt. from Univ. of California in 1959; died on Nov. 22, 1963 in California.

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was a British author, editor and intellectual. Best known for his essays and for the dystopian novel Brave New World, he was also editor of Oxford Poetry and his book The Doors of Perception, which advocated the value of psychedelic drugs such as LSD and mescaline, became a cult classic.

English novelist and critic.

English author.

Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963), English writer, author of Brave new world (1932), Eyeless in Gaza (1936), and other works. In 1937, he came to the United States and settled in California.

Born in England in 1894, Aldous Huxley is a writer most famous for his dystopian novel Brave New World. He moved to Los Angeles in 1937 and spent most of the rest of his life living in Southern California. He died on November 22, 1963.

Aldous Huxley was born in 1894 to a British family whose forebears included outspoken Darwin advocate Thomas Henry Huxley, his grandfather, and poet Matthew Arnold, his great uncle. Huxley's career as a writer began in the 1920s with a sequence of novels and short story collections which lampooned the pretensions of post World War I society. Interested in a variety of literary forms, Huxley also published books of essays, travel observations, and poetry. In 1928, he published the novel Point Counter Point, an ambitious work with a vast cast of characters which explored multiple points of view and the multiple aspects of experience. In 1932, Huxley released the book which would become his most famous, Brave New World. In this cautionary tale of the future, babies are bred in test tubes to become workers who, as adults, are kept docile through games, "sleep teaching," and the calming drug "soma." The book's success brought him celebrity and fortune, but the novels which followed suffered from Huxley's inclusion of his own instructive rhetoric. Still as prolific as ever, he continued to churn out additional stories, essays, plays, literary criticism and, following his 1937 move to Southern California, several Hollywood screenplays. In the final ten years of his life, Huxley experimented with LSD, writing about his experiences with the hallucinogen in his book The Doors of Perception. He died in 1963.

Author.

Aldous Huxley was born in Sussex, of a distinguished literary family, and educated at Oxford. He became a journalist and published some poetry, but gained his reputation through his novels, especially Brave new world (1932). In 1937 he moved permanently to California.

Aldous Huxley was born in 1894 to a British family whose forebears included outspoken Darwin advocate Thomas Henry Huxley, his grandfather, and poet Matthew Arnold, his great-uncle. Huxley's career as a writer began in the 1920s with a sequence of novels and short story collections which lampooned the pretensions of post-World War I society. Interested in a variety of literary forms, Huxley also published books of essays, travel observations, and poetry. In 1928, he published the novel Point Counter Point, an ambitious work with a vast cast of characters which explored multiple points of view and the multiple aspects of experience.

In 1932, Huxley released the book which would become his most famous, Brave New World. In this cautionary tale of the future, babies are bred in test tubes to become workers who, as adults, are kept docile through games, “sleep teaching,” and the calming drug “soma.” The book's success brought him celebrity and fortune, but the novels which followed suffered from Huxley's inclusion of his own instructive rhetoric. Still as prolific as ever, he continued to churn out additional stories, essays, plays, literary criticism and, following his 1937 move to Southern California, several Hollywood screenplays.

In the final ten years of his life, Huxley experimented with LSD, writing about his experiences with the hallucinogen in his book The Doors of Perception. He died in 1963.

British author Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, a great biologist who helped develop the theory of evolution. His mother was the sister of Mrs. Humphrey Ward, the novelist; the niece of Matthew Arnold, the poet; and the granddaughter of Thomas Arnold, a famous educator and the real-life headmaster of Rugby School who became a character in the novel Tom Brown's Schooldays . Aldous Huxley was the brother of renowned biologist and former Rice Institute faculty member Julian Huxley.

He attended Eton College and was studying medicine when he developed an eye infection which left him blind in one eye and partially blind in the other. He recovered enough vision to go on to Oxford University and graduate with honors, meeting other writers such as Lytton Strachey, Bertrand Russell, and D.H. Lawrence. Huxley published his first book, a collection of poems, in 1916. He was known during his lifetime for his wide-ranging knowledge in literature, sciences, and other topics. He and his wife Maria were wed in 1919, and their only child, Matthew, was born in 1920. Brave New World, perhaps his most well known book, was published in 1931. After spending years in London and Europe (mostly Italy), the family moved to the United States in 1937, and moved in circles of writers, literary critics, artists, scientists, and bohemian groups. In the 1950s, Huxley experimented with psychedelic drugs and with writing under their influence (for example, Doors of Perception, 1954, Heaven and Hell, 1956, and Island, 1962).

Huxley published 47 books in his lifetime. Some of them include: Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925), Point Counterpoint (1928), Brave New World (1932), Eyeless in Gaza (1936), and The Doors of Perception (1954). Maria Huxley died of breast cancer in 1955. Aldous Huxley married Laura Archera a year later. He died November 22, 1963, the same day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He was cremated, and his ashes were buried in his parents' grave in England.

Novelist Aldous Huxley was born July 26, 1894, in Godalming, Surrey, England, to Leonard and Julia Huxley. He attended Eton College and hoped to become a doctor until an eye infection left him blind for nearly eighteen months. After his eyesight recovered enough, he went on to study at Balliol College, Oxford, where he received his B.A. in English in 1916. However, his poor eyesight disqualified him from serving in World War I and the medical profession. He worked as a schoolmaster at Eton from 1917 to 1919, but from then on made a career from his writing. Besides novels, essays, and short stories, he also produced poetry, travel writing, and filmscripts.

Huxley married Maria Nys in 1919; they had one son, Matthew, who was born in 1920. Huxley worked as an editor at the Athenaeum and as a drama critic for the Westminster Gazette from 1919 until 1924. Beginning in 1923, publishing contracts with Chatto & Windus provided him with financial security.

Huxley published three volumes of poetry before publishing his first fiction, Limbo (1920), a collection of short stories and one play. His first two novels, Crome Yellow (1921) and Antic Hay (1923), were social satires, as was Point Counter Point (1928), one of his most regarded works. These early novels struck a chord with the post-war generation, and Huxley became a popular literary figure in England. Brave New World, a broader satire of values in modern technological society, was published in 1932 and brought him international recognition.

Huxley’s later writings, such as Eyeless in Gaza (1936), were more mystical and philosophical. After having lived in Italy during much of the 1920s, the Huxleys, along with Gerald Heard, moved to California in 1937. There Huxley became interested in Hindu philosophy, parapsychology, and mind-altering drugs. The Perennial Philosophy (1954) discussed the ideas of the world’s great mystics. Huxley described his experiences with hallucinogenic drug use in The Doors of Perception (1954). In Literature and Science (1963), he reflected on the relationship between the two disciplines. His later novels Ape and Science (1948), The Genius and the Goddess (1955), and Island (1962) were apologues and less successful due to their expository style.

Maria Huxley died of cancer in 1955, and Huxley married Laura Archera in 1956. Aldous Huxley died of cancer in Los Angeles, California, on November 22, 1963.

Biographical Note

Born in England in 1894, Aldous Huxley is a writer most famous for his dystopian novel Brave New World . He moved to Los Angeles in 1937 and spent most of the rest of his life living in Southern California. He died on November 22, 1963.

Biographical Note

English author.

Biographical Note

Aldous Huxley was born in Surrey, England on July 26, 1894, to a family distinguished in science, education and literature. He began writing while at Oxford University. With his first wife, Maria, he departed for California in 1937 and for a time wrote motion picture screenplays. After the death of Maria, Huxley married Laura Archera and together they explored the worlds of Eastern religion and drugs. Huxley died on November 22, 1963. His important novels include: Brave New World, The Gioconda Smile, The Doors of Perception, and Brave New World Revisited. He also published poetry and collections of essays. While in California he wrote the scenario for Pride and Prejudice with Jane Murfin (1940) and the treatment for Madame Curie (1943), both for M-G-M. In 1944 he wrote the scenario for 20th Century-Fox's Jane Eyre.

Biography

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894 in Surrey, England; a disease of the eyes permanently weakened his vision at age 16, disrupting his plan to enter the medical profession; BA, Balliol College, Oxford, 1916; employed by the British government during World War I; schoolmaster at Eton College, 1917-19; staff member of Athenaeum and Westminster gazette, 1919-24; published his first novel, Chrome yellow, in 1921; went on to write Point counter point (1928), Brave new world (1932), Eyeless in Gaza (1936), and Island (1962), among others; was a prolific writer of essays, poetry, criticism, and screenplays; received D. Litt. from University of California in 1959; died on November 22, 1963 in California.

Laura Huxley was born on November 2, 1911 in Turin (Torino), Italy. Laura studied violin since the age of ten, and as a teenager, continued her studies of the instrument in Berlin, Paris, and Rome. She eventually toured Europe and the United States, performing at Carnegie Hall and further pursuing her music study at the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia.

During World War II, Laura decided to remain in the United States and live with her close friend --- sister to Ernest Hemingway's second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer Hemingway --- Virginia Pfeiffer. Laura Huxley's study in psychotherapy, health, and nutrition was prompted by Virginia Pfeiffer's diagnosis of cancer in 1949. Before her studies and career in well-being, psychology, and health, Laura Huxley worked in Hollywood. Aldous Huxley and his first wife, Maria, met Laura Archera in 1948 while living in Wrightwood, California. In 1955, Maria Huxley died of breast cancer. One year after Maria's death, Aldous and Laura were married in Yuma, California. Together, they moved into a home in Hollywood Hills on Deronda Drive. After their house and most of Aldous's personal manuscripts and library were burned in a fire on May 12, 1961, the couple moved in with Virginia Pfeiffer and her two adopted children.

In 1959, before the fire, Aldous Huxley presented a series of lectures at the University of California, Santa Barbara called "The Human Situation." In 1961, Huxley repeated a variation of "The Human Situation" in a lecture series he presented at M.I.T. when he was the Carnegie Visiting Professor in Humanities. Huxley also spoke on "Human Potentialities" at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California. In 1960, Aldous Huxley was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. Aldous Huxley wrote and published his last novel, Island, in 1962. He died on November 22, 1963, the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

In 1963, Laura published her book, You Are Not the Target . She also offered psychological health and well-being guidance in the form of workshops and seminars to various groups and individuals in Southern California. Laura went on to publish a personal account of her life with Aldous in a book titled This Timeless Moment in 1969. Her later publications include Between Heaven and Earth: Recipes for Living and Loving (1974), Oneaday Reason to be Happy (1986) and The Child of Your Dreams (1987), co-authored with her nephew, Piero Ferrucci. In 1977, she founded a non-profit organization called, "Our Ultimate Investment" (OUI) which later became "Children: Our Ultimate Investment." The organization sponsored conferences on the topic of "the nurturing of the possible human" in 1978 and 1994. Among the awards and acknowledgments given to Laura Huxley in her life are an Honorary Doctorate in Human Services from La Sierra University and the Thomas R. Verny Award from the Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health in December of 2003. Laura Huxley died of cancer on December 13, 2007 in her Hollywood home.