Biography of Aldous Huxley Essay

Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894 in Surrey, England, as the thirdly son of Dr. Leonard Huxley and Julia Arnold. Huxley was born into a long line of scientists and intellectuals. His grandfather doubting Thomas Henry Huxley had the nickname Darwins Bulldog for his fierce defense of evolutionary science and for his passion for teaching Victorian scientific advancements to Britains works classes. Aldous Huxley was also related to the poet Matthew Arnold on his mothers side of the family. These cardinal disciplines, literature and science, converged at the end of the Victorian era and characterize Huxleys own life history and ambitions as an author, journalist, and humanist. Educated at Eton, Aldous Huxley was forced to tolerate the school at the age of seventeen due to an affliction of the eyes. He was partially blind for two or three historic period and indeed was unable to complete the rigorous scientific training he had undertaken.though problems with his eyes wo uld remain with him for the rest of his life, Huxley was able to attend Oxford where he sure a degree in English literature. Huxleys career began in journalism and included music and artistic criticism as well-nighly as book reviews. He also began writing poems, essays, and historical pieces. Huxleys first introduction to British intellectual society occurred while on the job(p) as a farm laborer at Garsington Manor, the site of the Bloomsbury Society, a group of public intellectuals that included Bertrand Russell. There he would marry maria Nys and they would have one child, Matthew Huxley. He also wrote his first book, a account book of poetry called The Burning Wheel. While working as an editor for shack and Garden during the1920s, Huxley wrote many novels including Brave New World.Huxley spent several years in Italy where he formed a friendship with D.H. Lawrence. They would remain close friends and Huxley would later edit Lawrences collected letters after his death. In 19 37, Huxley moved back to the United States to live in Hollywood, California, where he helped relieve scripts for several Hollywood movies of the time, although he never had a lasting career in movies. After World War II, he famously became knotted with the early psychedelic medicate movement. Huxley was an early proponent of the use of LSD, mescaline, and mescaline for their mind-altering effects. His 1954 book The Doors of Perception argued that through the use of psychedelic drugs, mountain would be able to cleanse the doors of perception in order to compact the infinite reality of the world.A controversial figure for most of his life, Huxley died from cancer on November 22, 1963, only hours after President John F. Kennedys blackwash in Dallas, Texas. By the time of his death, he was embraced in some circles as an intellectual and writer of the highest class, especially for his creation of the dystopian fantasy in his novel Brave New World and his engagement of the theme o f commercialisation in modern society. Others, however, saw him as a pseudo-scientist for his work in mystical traditions and his insistence on experiencing alternate realities through meditation, Eastern religions, and drug use. For his accomplishments, Huxley received the Award of Merit for the Novel from the American Academy of humanities and Letters in 1959.