Aldous Huxley
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 2018-12-23

Aldous Huxley, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=628 / CC BY SA 3.0

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer, novelist, philosopher, and prominent member of the Huxley family. He graduated from Balliol College, Oxford with a first-class honours degree in English literature.

The author of nearly fifty books, Huxley was best known for his novels (among them "Brave New World", set in a dystopian future); for nonfiction works, such as "The Doors of Perception", in which he recalls his experiences taking psychedelic drugs; and for his wide-ranging essays. Early in his career, Huxley published short stories and poetry, and edited the literary magazine "Oxford Poetry". He went on to publish travel writing, film stories, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death.

Huxley was a humanist and pacifist. He became interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism, and in particular universalism. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times. In 1962, a year before he died, Huxley was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature.

Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey, England, in 1894. He was the third son of the writer and schoolmaster Leonard Huxley, who edited "Cornhill Magazine", and his first wife, Julia Arnold, who founded Prior's Field School. Julia was the niece of poet and critic Matthew Arnold and the sister of Mrs. Humphry Ward. Aldous was the grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley, the zoologist, agnostic, and controversialist ("Darwin's Bulldog"). His brother Julian Huxley and half-brother Andrew Huxley also became outstanding biologists. Aldous had another brother, Noel Trevelyan Huxley (1891–1914), who committed suicide after a period of clinical depression.

As a child, Huxley's nickname was "Ogie", short for "Ogre". He was described by his brother, Julian, as someone who frequently "[contemplated] the strangeness of things". According to his cousin and contemporary, Gervas Huxley, he had an early interest in drawing.

Huxley's education began in his father's well-equipped botanical laboratory, after which he enrolled at Hillside School near Godalming. He was taught there by his own mother for several years until she became terminally ill. After Hillside he went on to Eton College. His mother died in 1908, when he was 14. He contracted the eye disease keratitis punctata in 1911; this "left [him] practically blind for two to three years." This "ended his early dreams of becoming a doctor." In October 1913, Huxley entered Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied English literature. He volunteered for the British Army in January 1916, for the Great War; however, he was rejected on health grounds, being half-blind in one eye. His eyesight later partly recovered. He edited "Oxford Poetry" in 1916, and in June of that year graduated BA with first class honours. His brother Julian wrote:

Following his years at Balliol, Huxley, being financially indebted to his father, decided to find employment. From April to July 1917, he was in charge of ordering supplies at the Air Ministry . He taught French for a year at Eton College, where Eric Blair (who was to take the pen name George Orwell) and Steven Runciman were amon...