Aldous Huxley Aldous Huxley Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley July November was a British writer who emigrated to the United States He was a member of the famous Huxley family who produced a number of brilliant scientific minds Best known for his novels and wide ranging output of essays he also published short stories poetry travel writing and film stories and scripts Through his novels and essays Huxley functioned as an examiner and sometimes critic of social mores societal norms and ideals and possible misapplications of science in human life While his earlier concerns might be called humanist ultimately he became quite interested in spiritual subjects like parapsychology and mystically based philosophy which he also wrote about By the end of his life Huxley was considered in certain learned circles a 'leader of modern thought'.
Biography
Early years
Family tree
Huxley was born in Godalming Surrey England He was the son of the writer Leonard Huxley by his first wife Julia Arnold and grandson of the famous proponent of Charles Darwin Thomas Huxley His brother Julian Huxley was a biologist also noted for his evolutionary theories Huxley understandably excelled in the areas he took up professionally for on his father's side were a number of noted men of science while on his mother's were people of literary accomplishment.
Huxley was a lanky delicately framed child who was gifted intellectually His father was a professional herbalist as well as an author so Aldous began his learning in his father's well equipped botanical laboratory then continued in a school named Hillside which his mother supervised for several years until she became terminally ill From the age of nine Aldous was then educated in the British boarding school system He took readily to the handling of ideas.
His mother Julia died in when Aldous was only fourteen and his sister Roberta died of an unrelated incident in the same month Three years later Aldous suffered an illness keratitis punctata which seriously damaged his eyesight His older brother Trev committed suicide in Aldous's near blindness disqualified him from service in World War I Once his eyesight recovered he was able to read English literature at Balliol College Oxford.
Maturing as a lean young man well over six feet in height the cerebrotonic Huxley's initial interest in literature was primarily intellectual While he was noted for his personal kindliness only considerably later some say under the influence of such friends as D H Lawrence did he heartily embrace feelings as matters of importance in his evolving personal philosophy and literary expression.
Following his education at Balliol Huxley was financially indebted to his father and had to earn a living For a short while in he was employed acquiring provisions at the Air Ministry But never desiring a career in administration or in business Huxley's lack of inherited means propelled him into applied literary work.
Huxley had completed his first unpublished novel at the age of seventeen and began writing seriously in his early twenties He wrote great novels on dehumanising aspects of scientific progress most famously Brave New World and on pacifist themes e g Eyeless in Gaza Huxley was strongly influenced by F Matthias Alexander and included him as a character in Eyeless in Gaza.
Middle years
Already a noted satirist and social thinker during World War I Huxley spent much of his time at Garsington Manor home of Lady Ottoline Morrell Later in Crome Yellow he caricatured the Garsington lifestyle but remained friendly with the Morrells He married Maria Nys whom he had met at Garsington.
Huxley moved to Llano California in but like his friend the philosopher Gerald Heard who accompanied him Huxley was denied citizenship since he refused to ascribe his pacifism to religious beliefs In his book Ends and Means most people in modern civilization agree that they want a world of 'liberty peace justice and brotherly love' though they haven't been able 