#ALDOUS HUXLEY BRAVE NEW WORLD SERIES#
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Burgeoning WriterĪ brilliant student despite the obstacles of his youth, Huxley earned a scholarship to Balliol College at Oxford University, where he studied English literature, reading with the aid of a magnifying glass and eye drops that dilated his pupils. Fate struck Huxley one more blow in 1914 when his brother Noel committed suicide after struggling with an extended period of depression. As a result, while attending the prestigious prep school Eton, Huxley abandoned his dreams of becoming a scientist and decided to focus on a literary career. Although Huxley did regain some of his sight, he would remain partially blind for the rest of his life and read with great difficulty. In 1908 his mother died of cancer, and in 1911 he was struck blind by the disease keratitis punctata. In adulthood, Huxley’s older brothers, Julian and Andrew, would both become accomplished biologists, and Huxley himself envisioned a future career in science from an early age.īut while he was still a boy, Huxley’s life would be upended by tragedy. Huxley, an early proponent of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution his father, Leonard, was a teacher and writer and his mother, Julia, was a descendant of the English poet Matthew Arnold. The fourth child in a family with a deep intellectual history, his grandfather was the noted biologist and naturalist T.

Early LifeĪldous Huxley was born in Godalming, England, on July 26, 1894. Huxley moved to the United States in 1937 and for the rest of his life maintained a prolific output of novels, nonfiction, screenplays and essays. A dark vision of the future, it is widely regarded as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. He followed with several more equally successful satirical novels before publishing the work for which he is best known, Brave New World. Five years later he published his debut novel Crome Yellow, which brought him his first taste of success. In 1916 he graduated with honors from Balliol College at Oxford University and published a collection of poems.

#ALDOUS HUXLEY BRAVE NEW WORLD SERIES#

In recent years dystopian novels have exploded in popular, with young adult books like Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games and Veronica Roth’s Divergent being expanded into incredibly successful series and film franchises.After a serious illness left him partially blind as a youth, Aldous Huxley abandoned his dreams of becoming a scientist to pursue a literary career. In its focus on the evils of totalitarianism and the use of technology to support these evils, Brave New World most closely resembles George Orwell's 1984, whose dystopia enforces conformity through methods like surveillance and torture.

#ALDOUS HUXLEY BRAVE NEW WORLD FREE#

Brave New World is a dystopian novel, which extrapolated from the rise of technology, science, and totalitarianism in the 1930s to imagine a future totalitarian state in which humanity had been robbed of all free choice and were forced into happiness through the manipulation of genetics and psychology. In addition, a number of writers wrote dystopian novels, in which they imagined the worst possible society, using it to criticize their current world.

But Utopia was the book that gave the genre its name, and numerous writers over the years wrote their own utopian novels. Utopia was not the first book to imagine a perfect society Plato's Republic, for example, does the same thing. Its title meant either 'good place' or 'no place,' in Greek, and the book described an ideal society that More used in order to criticize his own society. In 1516, Sir Thomas More published a book called Utopia. In 1963, the same year he died, Huxley published his last book, Island, which depicted a utopia in contrast to the dystopia of Brave New World. His attempt to write screenplays failed, but he developed an interest in hallucinogenic drugs that led to a book about his drug experiences, The Doors of Perception. As war loomed in Europe, Huxley, a pacifist, moved to California, along with his wife, Maria, and their son, Matthew. Huxley published Brave New World, his most successful novel, in 1932. He wrote prolifically throughout the 1920's, publishing numerous essays, sketches, caricatures, and four novels. Though his hopes of a medical career were dashed when an eye disease almost blinded him at 16, he soon built a career as a writer. He attended Eton and Oxford and was skilled and knowledgeable in both literature and science. Huxley was a thoughtful, imaginative child, though his family teased him for his grumbling disposition. Huxley’s father was the editor of Cornhill magazine, while his mother was related to the English poet Matthew Arnold.

His grandfather, a biologist, was instrumental in popularizing Darwin's theory of evolution. Aldous Huxley was born into a family of noted scientists and writers.

Aldous huxley brave new world