Aldous Huxley recollected

Description

Best-selling author Aldous Huxley's American years have been a period literary historians discounted. His reputation suffered after his exile to California, which he undertook partly for the sake of his failing sight, partly out of disappointment with the European peace movement, and partly in search of new spiritual direction. His writing and life underwent many transformations, and many crucial unanswered questions remained about his sojourn: Were the writings of the American years as self-indulgent as critics claimed? What sort of screenwriter was he: did this nearly blind writer ever learn the craft of scriptwriting? How did the cinematic conventions influence his own art? How and why did he become involved with mysticism and vision-inducing drugs? Did he ever reach that unitary mystical experience he sought throughout the last decades of his life? Prominent oral historian and biographer David Dunaway responds to these questions in this new revised edition, using interviews with co-workers, family and friends, and an analysis of Huxley's FBI files and little-known scripts for Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice.

Description

David King Dunaway has crafted an oral history of Huxley's central place in intellectual history that restores Huxley's reputation during his American years. After a brilliant early career with novels like Antic Hay and Chrome Yellow, Huxley's reputation suffered with his exile to California, which he undertook partly for the sake of his failing sight, partly out of disappointment with the European peace movement and partly in search of a new spiritual direction. This wide-ranging study includes interviews with Huxley's family, Isherwood and other key figures in British and American letters, with such sources as his FBI file and his newly discovered film scripts for Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice. In addition, never-before published interviews trace Huxley's pioneering steps into the world of meditation and psychoactive drugs. In a chronological exploration of Huxley's life, the book portrays the intimate side to Huxley's shift from a satiric novelist to a prophet of science, sociology and mysticism.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Aldous Huxley recollected: an oral historyCarroll & Graf Publishers1995-01-01
• Aldous Huxley RecollectedPaperbackAltamira Press1998-10-01
• Aldous Huxley recollectedAltaMira Press1999-01-01
• Aldous Huxley RecollectedRowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated2000-01-01