Aldous Huxley Books In Order

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Aldous (Leonard) Huxley was and English author of fiction, non-fiction and poetry and critic. He was born in Godalming, Surrey, in England on July 26, 1894 into a prominent middle class family. During his youth he had a serious accident, that left him partially blind. This was actually the main reason for him to abandon his dream of becoming a scientist. Then, he decided to pursue a literary career. After he graduated from Balliol College in 1916 with honors at Oxford University, he published -the same year- his first poetry collection, under the title ‘The Burning Wheel’. Throughout his whole career as a novelist, Aldous Huxley wrote 47 books, but he became best known for his novel ‘Brave New World’ (published in 1931), which is actually a dark vision of the future. Moreover, this book is regarded to be as one of the most significant novels of the 20th century. Moreover, Aldous Huxley also wrote non-fiction books, such as ‘The Doors of Perception’ and ‘The Perennial Philosophy’. His last novel ‘Island’ was published in 1962. The main story of this book is about a Pacific island, where and ideal society has flourished for about 120 years. Besides novels, he also published a number of travel books, plays, histories, as well as essays on philosophy, sociology, arts and religion. Some of the most common these in his work included musticism, parapsychology and spirituality. In addition, all of his books depict how preoccupied he was about the dangers that were threatening the civilizations, that he could not rouse himself to defend it.

Crome Yellow, 1921

His debut novel ‘Crome Yellow’ was published for the first time in 1921 and later in September 2004. The story of the book is about Denis Stone, a naive young poet, who is invited to stay at Crome, a nice house in the English countryside. He basically accepts the invitation for spending his weekend there, because Anne Wimbush, the the niece of the owner of the house is going to be spending some days there too. She is a pretty young lady, some years older than he is and knows that Denis has a crash on her. In fact, she is certain that if he proposes, she will accept his proposal. When he arrives at the country house, he actually finds himself at the center of a group of aristocratic and rich artists. Denis’ hosts, Henry Wimbush and his wife Priscilla (looks very exotic) are joined in a party of different guests, whose opinions and intrigues ensure that his staying is a memorable one. Denis is a naive character and is enamored of Anne Wimbush, who loves spirituality. But eventually his staying proves to be a disaster after his weak attempts to attract the girl of his dreams. On the other hand, the owner of the house, Mr. Wimbush has been writing about the house and its family, of which excerpts are given. In addition, other characters of the story include Mr. Barbecue-Smith and Mr. Scogan and more. All the guests spend most of their time at the country house eating and drinking. But the most illuminating character is Jenny, who is deaf, around 30 years old and she stays distant, writing her journal. When Denis reads it, he understands that there are other people beside himself in the world, who are capable of observation and sensitivity. The ‘Crome Yellow’ is considered to be a precursor to Huxley’s brilliant novel ‘Brave New World’ and in fact some of the characters in this book also appear in other books too. In addition, this book is actually a portrayal of the home of Lady Ottoline Morrell (Garsington Manor), a house where authors such as T.S Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Yeats, Huxley and many others used to gather in order to write. The first time Aldous Huxley visited the Garsington Manor was in 1915 and met there Russell, Clive Bell, Lawrence and the painter Duncan Grant among many others.

Antic Hay, 1923

It is a comic novel by Aldous Huxley, The story of the book takes place in London at the end of World War I and the plot starts just after the end of the war. The characters of ‘Antic Hay’ have to deal with the lack of values and stability, that were brought by this terrible conflict. In fact, everybody is lost because of the situation, but at the same time they try to find happiness and enjoy life again – even though everything is out of control in a comic and rediculous way. The plot mainly follows the wanderings of Theodore Gumbril junior, a young man, who is the main character of the book. He is a teacher, who quits his job as an Oxford schoolmaster, in order to pursue a fatuous scheme to invent and sell trousers and make his fortune. He is also an architect, who has a great passion for Christopher Wren and lives his life by building miniature architectural models. It’s an excited book, which is full of bohemian characters; there is Mercaptan the effete, a writer of irrelevant scholarly articles and a womanizer; Casimir Lypiatt, who is a middle aged poet, painter and a musician, woefully bad at all of them and fixated on his vision of the ideal artist as a moral agent. There is also James Shearwater, who is a phychologist, but has no interest in understanding of social affairs. Of course in the plot there are a number of women too. Myra Viveash is a dark muse with many admirers and Rosie is actually a bored housewife. After the WWI all these characters saw drastical changes in their lives, such as in politics, arts, music and so on. They actually found themselves lost in a new world and they acquired an eccentric behavior, that can only been seen as a way of dealing with the stress of all of these changes in their lives. In this book, Huxley reflects all the changes that go on at the time.

Huxley died of cancer in 1963, in Los Angeles, California. During his life he was a member of the Huxley family, which also including prominent members such as Thomas Henry Huxley, who was his grandfather, Julian Huxley (his brother) and Andrew Huxley (his half-brother).

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