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Aldous Huxley
(1894-1963)
Prophetic writer
Nigel Cooper
Updated June 2003
Sixty five years before Dolly the sheep was born, before the reality of designer babies and the mapping of the human genome, Aldous Huxley had already seen a future with babies made to order. In his novel, Brave New World, Huxley created a society where babies were engineered to a specific social status and happiness was controlled by drugs. The book showcased his non-conformist views and cemented his position as an accomplished writer and social critic.
Family background
Born into a distinguished family, Huxley was the product of a long line of scientific and literary figures. His paternal grandfather was Thomas Henry Huxley, the biologist who supported Darwin and his theory of evolution. Huxley's brother, Thomas, followed this tradition, also becoming a biologist. But Aldous was to follow other members of his family into the literary world. Huxley's great uncle was Matthew Arnold, the humanist poet, his aunt was a novelist and his father, Leonard, was a poet and biographer.
Despite this, writing was not Huxley's first choice of career. He had intended to study medicine but at the age of 16, while studying at Eton, an eye illness left his sight permanently damaged. He went on to graduate with honours from Oxford, but English had replaced medicine as his subject of choice. Although he recovered from the total blindness he suffered for 18 months after his illness, Huxley remained near blind for the rest of his life. It was perhaps this misfortune that turned him towards writing.
Early work
Huxley wrote two volumes of poetry whilst still at Oxford, the first of which was published in 1916. His first novel was a social satire called Crome Yellow (1921). This was followed by Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928). Some of his early work has been criticised for being issue and idea-based at the expense of solid characterisation. But it is in these works that Huxley's style emerged as a combination of dialogue and cynical social criticism – the same voice that was to preoccupy much of his later work.
In 1919, Huxley married Belgian born Maria Nys. They had one son, Matthew, in 1920. Aldous then spent most of the 1920s living in Italy and travelling with his great friend, D H Lawrence. It was in 1931, however, that Huxley produced the novel he is most remembered for – Brave New World.
Brave New World
Written over a period of four months, this novel is often compared with George Orwell's later classic, Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although both novels deal with dictatorships, Huxley's is less harsh than Orwell's, written as it was before the world witnessed the brutality of Hitler and Stalin. In Huxley's vision, social dissatisfaction is controlled not only genetically but also with the use of a drug, Soma. It is a world devoid of genuine emotion or happiness and it is clear in this work that Huxley was now concerned with more than social satire. He was becoming a social philosopher with a growing dislike of conformity.
In 1937, Huxley and his family moved to Hollywood, believing that the climate might benefit his eyesight. It was here that he became a screenwriter, adapting such classics as Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice for the screen. But this was not to be his most successful medium. In 1958, he published Brave New World Revisited, a series of essays on real life problems he forewarned of, such as overcrowding and the over-organisation of society.
Later life
Huxley went on to publish works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), an anthology discussing mystical and religious ideas. As he aged, he became more and more critical of Western civilisation and its reliance on technology. It is perhaps this disillusionment that directed him towards the Eastern philosophies, mysticism and the use of drugs. In contrast to his disapproval of the Soma drug in Brave New World, Huxley became interested in mind-expanding drugs, such as LSD, during the 1950s.
This was a relationship that would last and his use of mescaline resulted in several books, such as the non-fiction novels, Doors of Perception (1954) and Heaven and Hell (1956). His last novel, Island (1962), is also centred around the idea of drugs and sanity. It is often suggested that this was an antidote to Brave New World, for Island is not a dysfunctional utopia but a working one, based on a mixture of Eastern and Western philosophies.
Huxley's wife Maria died in 1955. One year later, he married Laura Archera. Huxley's own death was overshadowed in the media by the assassination of John F Kennedy on the same day, 22 November 1963. History remembers him, however, as a writer with vision and foresight.
The prophecies
Today, genetic engineering is no longer merely the realm of fiction. Whether this technology will be taken to the extremes imagined by Huxley remains to be seen, but his dark image of an artificially engineered population moves ever closer. Indeed, Clonaid, part of a religious cult called the Ralians, has already announced the birth of not one but two cloned children. Eve, they say, was born on 26 December 2002, closely followed by a second child on 3 January 2003. Neither baby has been examined or even seen, however, leading many to assume the cult's claim is nothing but a publicity stunt. But Clonaid are not alone – Severino Antinori, the Italian fertility expert, and his one-time associate Dr Panayiotis Zavos are both vocally attempting to produce a human clone.
Huxley's vision of a genetically engineered future for the human race is closer than ever to a reality. Whether or not the first human clones have already been born is questionable but one thing is certain – Aldous Huxley left a chilling insight into the potential misuse of the technology we create.
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Find out more
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Websites
Aldous Huxley
www.somaweb.org
Comprehensive site dedicated to Aldous Huxley, containing a list of his complete works, a discussion forum and links to other sites.
Themes in Aldous Huxley's work
http://somaweb.org/w/sub/ThemesInHuxley.html
An online essay discussing Huxley's work, the themes within it and his dynamic style.
Laura Huxley Interview
www.maps.org/news-letters/v04n4/04438hux.html
An interview from 1994 with Aldous Huxley's second wife Laura, discussing the centenary of the author's birth and the continuing importance of his ideas.
The Huxley File
http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley
A biography and list of the works of Aldous Huxley's famous grandfather T H Huxley, supporter of Darwin and creator of the word 'agnostic'.
Severino Antinori and Human Cloning – BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/
newsid_1477000/1477698.stm
BBC News article discussing the controversial claims of the Italian embryologist that he will begin cloning humans for infertile couples.
Advanced Cell Technology
www.advancedcell.com
Website of the company claiming to have cloned the first human embryo.
Clonaid
www.clonaid.com
This private US organisation has pledged to be the first to clone an adult human and offers a range of services, including Clonapet, promising the possibility of cloning a deceased family pet. Note that the organisation was set up by Rael, spiritual leader of the Raelian religious cult movement and the world's largest UFO-related organisation.
Books
This Timeless Moment: A personal view of Aldous Huxley by Laura Huxley (Celestial Arts, 2000) £13.99
A moving account of the latter part of Huxley's life with his second wife, Laura. It discusses his interest in psychedelic drugs and Eastern mysticism in addition to his fascination with the spiritual world.
Aldous Huxley Recollected by David Dunnaway (altaMira, 1998) £14.95
A biography and account of the years Huxley spent in America, including interviews with his family and friends.
Aldous Huxley: Literary prophet: A study of six of his novels by Ronald T Sion (Xlibris Corporation, 2000) £23
A study of six of the famous authors novels, including Brave New World.
TH Huxley's Place in Natural Science by Mario Di Gregorio (Yale University Press, 1985) £28
This book contains an overview of the great biologist's work and a comparison of his views with those of Darwin.
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (Voyager Classics, 2001) £7.99
Human beings, graded from intellectuals to manual workers, hatched from incubators and brought up in communal nurseries, conditioned to accept their social destiny. The story develops around an unorthodox AlphaPlus, who visits a New Mexican Reservation and brings a savage back to London. Huxley's classic novel.
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