At birth, Aldous Huxley immediately found himself surrounded by England’s Literary and Scientific elite. His father, Leonard Huxley was teaching classic literature at Charterhouse School in Surry England. Leonard later wrote biographies on Robert Scott, Charles Darwin, and his own father Thomas Henry Huxley. Aldous’s grandfather, biologist Thomas Henry Huxley or as he was better known as, “Darwin’s Bulldog”; was an avid defender of evolution and a supporter of Charles Darwin. His mother Judith or Julia Arnold was the granddaughter of Dr. Thomas Arnold, headmaster of Rugby School and the niece of English Poet Matthew Arnold. His older brother Julian followed his grandfather’s example and become an excellent biologist, philosopher, and educator. Huxley’s half brother Andrew went on to win the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Born during the height of Victorian era in England, Aldous Leonard Huxley came into this world on July 26 1894, in Godalming, Surrey England.

Educated at home by his mother, Aldous attended Eton and after graduating Balliol College, Oxford in 1916, Huxley started his career as a writer and an author. Starting as a journalist, writing primarily satire, Huxley’s later works offered more in depth thoughts about politics, society, and psychology. Aldous Huxley’s first full-length novel Chrome Yellow, written in 1921, continued in a similar satirical vein. During the 1920s and 30s Huxley spent much of his time traveling the world visiting the United States, India, and Europe, spending much of it in Italy during the rise of Fascism. It was in this setting in 1932 that he wrote his classic novel, “A Brave New World.” In 1937, Huxley immigrated to the United States and settled in California. Continue reading →