Aldous Huxley Biography and Works

British Novelist, Poet and Essayist

Aug 15, 2008 Tel Asiado

Life and works of English writer Aldous Huxley, best known for his novel Brave New World.

Aldous Huxley was a major British writer just after the First World War. He is best remembered for his novel Brave New World and Point Counter Point.

Early Life of Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey, England, on July 26, 1894, into a rich and famous Huxley English family. His grandfather, Thomas Huxley, was a biologist who helped develop the theory of evolution. Huxley received a traditional British upper-class education at Eton College and Oxford University. Sadly, at the age of 16 an eye disease left him nearly blind. Unable to pursue his chosen medical career and as a scientist or fighter in World War I, he turned to journalism, writing poetry and fiction.

The Novelist and Brave New World

His first novel, Crome Yellow, a witty satire and criticism of 1920s hedonistic society, was published when he was 27. His next novels, including Antic Hay, Point Counter Point, Brave New World, established him as an important voice in the world of literature and social criticism.

Brave New World is a vision of a well-ordered, highly-technological society of the future. A drug has been developed to make sure that citizens are continuously happy, and that scientists, representing technology, are able to produce babies who will fit in their future job roles. The trade-off is that society becomes a soulless one, almost acting like machines. Briefly, Brave New World is a nightmarish utopia of the future in which people are deprived of ordinary emotions. Huxley in this novel relevantly questions the values of Western civilization with its ever-increasing reliance on technology.

Huxley's Later Years

After living in France and Italy, Huxley moved to America and became a Hollywood screenwriter. For the rest of his life he lived in California, continuing to write novels as well as essays on philosophy, science and politics.

Huxley became interested in the effects of mind-altering drugs called 'mescaline' used in practices like meditation and psychotherapy. He wrote about this in his book The Doors of Perception. His later novels include Eyeless in Gaza, The Devils of Loudun, and Island. His 1958 Brave New World Revisited is a collection of essays. He died at the age of 69, November 22, 1963.

Works by Aldous Huxley

• Come Yellow, 1921
• Antic Hay, 1923
• Point Counter Point, 1928
• Brave New World, 1932
• Eyeless in Gaza, 1936
• After Many a Summer, 1939
• Time Must Have a Stop, 1944
• Apre and Essence, 1948
• The Devils of Loudun, 1952
• The Doors of Perception, 1954
• Brave New World Revisited, 1958
• Island, 1962

Sources:

Dictionary of Writers, edited by Rosemary Goring, Larousse, 1994

Illustrated Biographical Dictionary, edited by John Clark, Chancellor Press, 1994

The Cambridge Literature in English, New Edition, edited by Ian Ousby,Cambridge, 1993

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Aldous Huxley