But with the publication of his first two novels, Crome Yellow (1921) and Antic Hay (1923), Huxley emerged as a particularly witty chronicler of modern life among the educated and pretentious. French novelist Marcel Proust praised Huxley's early efforts, and Huxley seemed destined for life as a poet. Huxley's first published work was a collection of his poetry, The Burning Wheel (1916), written when he was still in his early twenties. Huxley also contributed to Vanity Fair and Vogue before devoting himself entirely to his own fiction and essay writing in 1924. Among his pupils was Eric Blair, who would later write such classics as 1984 and Animal Farm under the pseudonym "George Orwell."įrom 1919 to 1921, Huxley worked as an editor on the London journal Athenaeum, one of the best-known publications of the time. Huxley's early exposure to the ideas of such a diverse and progressive group deeply influenced his world-view and his writing.Īfter taking his degree at Oxford, Huxley returned to Eton to teach. Here Huxley met novelist Virginia Woolf, economist John Maynard Keynes, and critics Bertrand Russell and Clive Bell - some of the most important writers and thinkers of the time. In 1915, Huxley took a First (highest honors) in English Literature.Ī less formal, but nonetheless important part of Huxley's education was his regular attendance at Lady Ottoline Morrell's get-togethers, which provided many literary, artistic, and political reformers and experimenters the chance to meet and talk. Poor sight caused by the eye disease prevented his pursuit of his first career choice, medicine, but he threw himself into study of literature, reading with the help of a magnifying glass. Huxley was among the best of them, certainly. His education, then, represented a privileged road to power for wealthy and well-born British men who sometimes displayed real brilliance. Like all the sons of his family, Huxley attended Eton, a prestigious preparatory school, and Balliol College, Oxford. Fortunately, surgery corrected some of his vision, but Huxley would suffer from complications in vision for the rest of his life. A family tendency toward depression compounded by this pressure may have contributed to the suicide of Trevenan, Aldous' elder brother.Īt sixteen, the sudden onset of keratitis punctate, an eye disease, left Aldous nearly blind and almost ruined his own chances for success.
#A brave new world author professional
Academic and professional brilliance was expected as a matter of course, with no excuses allowed.
Huxley was known in his family, constituted a full-time, exhausting job for the children - Aldous included. Living up to the expectations of "Grandpater," as T.
Thus Aldous grew up in an atmosphere in which thought on science, religion, and education informed and even dominated family life.
Matthew's father, Thomas Arnold, head of Rugby School, had presided with earnest devotion over the theory and practice of education in his time. Huxley's mother was a niece of poet and essayist Matthew Arnold, who expressed the moral struggles of the modern age and the retreat of a religion-based culture. Huxley, gained recognition in the nineteenth century as the writer who introduced Charles Darwin's theory of evolution to a wide public and coined the word "agnostic." The elder Huxley's writing contributed to the growing debate on science and religion, a theme that would capture the imagination of his grandson, Aldous. The third son of Leonard Huxley, a writer, editor, and teacher, and Julia Arnold, also a teacher, the young Aldous grew up in a family of well-connected, well-known writers, scientists, and educators.Īt Aldous' birth, the Huxley family and their relatives already commanded literary and philosophical attention in Victorian England. Aldous Huxley was born July 26, 1894, in the village of Godalming, Surrey, England.
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