Bibliography on Huxley

Aldous Huxley was born the 26 of July 1894 in Godalming, England. Huxley was born into a prominent family. As a child he learned at his father well equipped botanical lab. Then later on he went to a school called Hillside. While at Hillside he was under constant supervision by his mom since she was his teacher. Then he went on to Eton college where he studied until he became ill. The illness left him practically blind for about two- three years. Once he got better he went and studied English literature at Bailliol college. He then later worked at the technologically-advanced Brunner and Mond chemical plant in Bellingham Teaside. After working here Huxley wrote Brave New World.



Huxley then later worked as a farm labourer where he met alot of interesting figures. In 1919 he married and later moved out to California in 1937. While in California he did a couple of movie scripts due to the fact that he was real good at writing papers. Huxley once wrote the synopsis of Alice and wonderland for Walt Disney. Walt Disney rejected the script due to the fact that he could only understand every third word.



The same illness that affected Huxley as a teenager never left him with good eyesight for the rest of his life. In 1939 Huxley started to use the Bates Method in hopes that he would recover his eyesight. While using this method he was inpired to write a book called The Art Of Seeing. Huxley truely believed that the Bates Method worked but while giving a speech once he started pulling in the paper closer and closer to his eyes. It was then obviouse that Huxley had not gained any eyesight but that he was just remembering his speeches.



Huxley was also known for taking psychedelic drugs. The one he is most known for taking is LSD. It is believed that in 1930 he took peyote with the Mystic Aleister Crowley. He was later introduced to mescaline by his psychiatrist in 1953. Huxley wrote a number of essays which depicted his experiences while on his psychedelic drugs. Many of this essays were constantly read by early hippies. Huxley used LSD so much that even on his death bed he took 100 micrograms as he lay dying.



In wikipedia i read about how working at the chemical plant was a source in the book. I believe that the experience from working at the chemical plant really had a great influence on the book. If you think about it, in the book Huxley talked alot about how humans were conditioned to be specific members of the caste sytem. While at the chemical lab Huxley must have seen alot of things being engineered to do specific things. Being around all of this experimenting and engineering of chemicals must have given him alot of ideas about how the future world could turn out to be. Huxley also talks alot about soma which is like a pill people take to relax them and take the stesses of life from them. Huxley probably used his experiences of drug use in this book. In 1930 when Huxley took peyote he must have had a good experience from it. I researched the effects that peyote gives you on yahoo and here is what a group of people who have taken the drug say, "Peyote gives you a divine feeling and it makes you feel enlighted and happy". So Huxley's experience using this drug could have lead him to putting it in the book with a different name. One of the descriptions of soma use in the book says that it would relax you if mad or angry. Many of the times that soma was used it was used to calm one of the characters in the book down.

The invention of the assembly by the Ford company could have also been a source used by Huxley when writing this book. In the beginning of the book Huxley writes about how the human is recreated. The infants are in a bottle which is on a line that is constantly moving. In the book Huxley would always talk about how the assembly line of infants was used for mass production. When i read about the Ford assembly line they also said it was great and it enabled the mass production of cars. Huxley also put some humor in the book and it had to do with Ford. In the book people would say things like " Oh Ford" instead of "Oh God". I thought this was real funny.

Aldous Huxley life was very interesting and bizzarre. One thing i can tell you is that this guy can write some good literature. Many people can have there opinion of why he wrote Brave New World but will anyone of us really ever know the true meaning of the book? All i know is that this guy had an imagination way ahead of his time.