ALDOUS HUXLEY: CHRONOLOGY

July 26, 1894	born into a family that included some of the most distinguished members of that part of the English ruling Class made up of the intellectual elite.
Father	son of Thomas Henry Huxley - great biologist theory of evolution with Darwin.
Mother	sister of Mrs. Humpfrey Ward, novelist nice of Methew Arnold, poet granddaughter of Thomas Arnold, real life headmaster of Rugby School
Heritage and Upbringing	effect on his work Gerald Herd, longtime friend: Huxleys ancestry "brought down on him a weight of intellectual authority and a momentum of moral obligations". Brave New World evidence of embivalent attitude towards such authority assumed by he ruling class like England of his days BNW rigid class structure and even stronger than England's, cause biologically and chemically engineered and psychologically conditioned.
own experiences	standing apart form class into which he was born
small child	considered different alertness intelligence brother: "superiority" respected and loved Brave New World Helmholtz Watson Bernhard Marx problems cause different
Huxley feels that heredity made each individual unique
14 years old Mother died	sense of transience of human happiness you can see the influence of his loss in Brave New World Utopians deny unpleasantness of death find perpetual happiness cost great: by denying themselves unpleasant experiences denying pleasant as well happiness: drug soma, making love, Obstacle Golf --> essantially shallow Savages (of the reservation) poor dirty ills of old age, painfull death blessed with happiness (still transient, but deeper and more real)
16 years old eye illness, nearly blind	learns Brialle recovers some vision Oxford University - with honours scientific work - no idea of vision early novels --> ideal for motion pictures later: screen writer
1916	first book, collection of poems
1919 marriage	Maria Nys, Belgian
1920 son (their only child)	Metthew Huxley
1920's travelling	Italy, France, India USA "+": confidence, vitality, "generous extravagance" "-": way vitality is expressed public amusement dancing, motoring Huxley: "all movement and noise like the water gurgling out of a bath down the waste. Yes, down the waste"
1931 Brave New World	written in 4 months 3 years after his bestseller Point Counter Point important: before Hitler, Stalin, worldwar 2 (Orwell 1984 written much later, in 1948
1937 moves to United Staates 1938 Hoolywood	Screenwriter California one of his novels caricatures what he sees as the strange life there After many a summer dies the swan (Jo Stoye, immortal, scientific experiments &st==> giving up humnity --> animal state)
1946 forword to Brave New World	he says, he no longer wants to make social sanity an impossiblity (as in BNW). this, after death of millions of people during the war and the atomic bomb invented convinced that while still "rather rare", sanity could be achieved. The Perennial Philosophy collection of texts with his own commentaries on mystical and religious approaches to sane life in a sane society.
1958 Brave New World Revisited	Set of essays on real life problems overpopulation overorganisation psychological techn. salesmanship hypnopedia sleep teaching he wants to warn people by showing them instruments the gouvernment can abuse to deprive people of freedom.
1950's interest in drugs	psychedelic drugs mindexpanding drugs like mescaline and LSD. Takes them several times under the supervision of a medicin. allow escape from the self (?) physically and socially harmless Doors of Perception (1954)
Island 1962	antidote to Brave New World - a good utopia soma --> a perfected version of LSD people of Island in religious way.
Interests	Huge range of interests. The preparation for Island included research in the following areas: Greek history Polynesian anthropologie translations from sanscrit Buddhist test's Scientific papers on pharmaology neurophysiology psychology education novels, poems, critical essays, travel books
dies 1963	Remains nearly blind all his life. Dies in 1963