1940
August, after earlier ill-health, begins work on Grey Eminence.
1941
May finishes Grey Eminence (published October); works on screenplay of Jane Eyre; starts on Time Must Have A Stop.
1942
February, Huxleys move to desert house at Llano del Rio; at work on Jane Eyre; April starts The Art of Seeing (published October).
1943
Resumes work on novel; July stays with Gerald Heard at Trabuco College; October, Huxleys take a flat at South Doheny Drive, Beverly Hills in addition to Llano (to 1945).
1944
February finishes Time Must Have A Stop (published August); May starts The Perennial Philosophy.
1945
March, finishes Perennial Philosophy (published September); June buys mountain chalet in Wrightwood, California; writing Science, Liberty and Peace; November to December works with Walt Disney on Alice and Wonderland.
1946
Spending most of time at Llano in Mojave Desert; March Science, Liberty and Peace; July to October at work on script of The Gioconda Smile for Universal; September, at work on stage version of same story.
1947
Finally abandons Llano for Wrightwood; March starts historical novel on Catherine of Siena which is never completed; September leaves California for first time since 1938 by car for New York; November to December returned from New York to write Ape and Essence.
1948
February The Gioconda Smile published as play in US as Mortal Coils, released as film with title A Woman’s Vengeance; 3 June, stage version of Gioconda Smile opens in London for nine month run; 24 June, Huxleys sail for Europe (not seen since 1937) from New York; Paris, Siena, Rome, London; August, Ape and Essence; October return to New York; November to December in Palm Desert on doctor’s orders; at work on stage version of Ape and Essence.
1949
February Paris stage version of Gioconda Smile; May buy house at 740 North King’s Road, Los Angeles (but May to September at Wrightwood).
1950
April, Themes and Variations; Matthew marries Ellen Howde in New York; May sails on Queen Mary to France; Paris, Rome, Siena, London, Villa Rustique at Sanary; Paris; September, returns to New York; October, New York production of Gioconda Smile; visits Frieda Lawrence on way back to LA; November to December, starts work on The Devils of Loudun.
1951
March, virus infection followed in July by severe attack of iritis.
1952
January, Maria seriously ill, has treatment for breast cancer; October, The Devils of Loudun.
1953
May, first mescalin experience with Dr Humphry Osmond; June tour through northwestern states followed by work on The Doors of Perception.
1954
February, The Doors of Perception; 7 April, sails to Cherbourg; attends parapyscholocy conference, Vence; then Paris, Ismailia, Cairo, Jerusalem, Beirut, Cyprus, Athens, Rome, Paris, London; 21 August sails for New York; 7 September, returns to Los Angeles; October, lecturing, finishes The Genius and The Goddess; November, collaborates with Beth Wendell on stage version of The Genius and the Goddess.
1955
12 February, Maria dies; April to May drives by car to New York via Southern states; May to June at 1035 Park Avenue, New York working on stage production of The Genius and the Goddess; novel appears June; July to August, summer with Matthew at Guilford, Connecticut; September to December back in Los Angeles
1956
February, Heaven and Hell; 19 March, marries Laura Archera at Yuma, Arizona; July, couple move to 3276 Deronda Drive, Los Angeles; starts work on Island (not published until 1961); October, Adonis and the Alphabet.
1957
July to November, at Shoreham Hotel, New York working on stage version of The Genius and The Goddess; December, begins Brave New World Revisited.
1958
July to August, travels in Peru and Brazil; September, Italy; October, London, Paris, Venice; October, Brave New World Revisited; November, lectures at Turin and other Italian cities; December, returns to Los Angeles.
1959
February to May, first course of lectures at Santa Barbara on ‘The Human Situation’; July, serious fall; September to December, second series of lectures at Santa Barbara.
1960
March to April, Visiting Professor at Menninger Foundation, Kansas; May, cancer diagnosed; June, radium treatment; September to November, Visiting Professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
1961
January, visits Hawaii; February, control of the mind conference, San Francisco; 12 May, Deronda Drive house destroyed by fire; June, finishes Island, visits London; July at Vence; August, Switzerland, Copenhagen; September, returns to Los Angeles to stay at 6233 Mulholland Highway; November India, Japan.
1962
February to May, Visiting Professor at Berkeley; March, Island, conference at Santa Barbara on technology in the modern world; April to May, addresses further conferences in the US; June, illness recurs, The Genius and the Goddess performed in England; July minor operation; August to September, Brussels for meeting of World Academy of Arts and Sciences; September, London; November, lectures in Mid West.
1963
March, at Rome conference of UN Food and Agricultural Organisation; March to April, lecturing at US universities; April to May, another relapse; August, Stockholm for meeting of World Academy of Arts and Sciences, London, Dartington, Italy; September, Literature and Science (his last book); 22 November, dies in Los Angeles; 17 December, Memorial Service, Friends House, London.
Acknowledgements and Sources
I should like to express particular thanks to Laura Archera Huxley, Matthew Huxley, and Sybille Bedford who kindly agreed to be interviewed by me and who encouraged me in writing this book. Their reminiscences and critical opinions were invaluable.
I have drawn on the extensive amount of unpublished material which exists in library collections in the United Kingdom, United States and Belgium and would like to thank the following institutions for allowing me access to their collections and granting permission to quote from materials in their care: The Huntington Library, San Marino, California (Huxley collection, oral history transcripts, the diary of Grace Hubble, Isherwood papers); The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, The University of Texas at Austin, Texas (Huxley collection, Huxley–Ottoline Morrell correspondence, Huxley–Mary Hutchinson correspondence, Maria Huxley–Ottoline Morrell correspondence, Maria Huxley–Mary Hutchinson correspondence, Hutchinson papers); Archives et Musée de la Littérature, Bibliothèque Royale Albertine, Brussels (Huxley correspondence, Maria Huxley correspondence, Suzanne Nys memoir); University of Southern California, Los Angeles, Charles E. Young Research Library, Department of Special Collections (Huxley collection, Heard collection); The British Library (Huxley correspondence); The Bodleian Library, Oxford, Department of Special Collections and Western Manuscripts (Huxley correspondence); King’s College Cambridge Centre for Modern Archives (Huxley correspondence); University of Reading Library, Department of Archives (restricted Huxley–Chatto papers); National Sound Archive (Huxley television and radio recordings); Stanford University, California (Huxley correspondence); New York Public Library (Huxley correspondence); University of Princeton Library, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections (Huxley correspondence); National Library of Wales (Huxley correspondence); Wellcome Institute Library and Galton Institute (Huxley correspondence in Eugenics Society archives); Lambeth Palace Library (Huxley–Dick Sheppard correspondence); Eton College Library (Huxley correspondence). I should also like to thank M. Didier Martina-Fieschi, Service du Patrimonie, Mairie de Sanary Sur Mer; Claude B. Zachary, University of Southern California Archivist and Manuscripts Librarian; Cathy Henderson, Shannon Lawson, Pat Fox,(Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center), Sue Hodson, Romaine Ahlstrom (Huntington Library); Michael Bott (Reading University Library); Hugues Robaye, Amélie Schmitz (Musée de la Littérature, Brussels); Je
ff Rankin (UCLA); Jennifer Kerns (Newnham College, Cambridge); Michelle Duke (Random House); Colin Harris (Bodleian Library); John Timson (Galton Institute); Lesley Hall (Wellcome Institute); Michael Meredith (Eton College); Raymond-Josué Seckel (Bibliothèque Nationale de France); Margaret Sherry (Princeton University Library).
I should like to express special thanks to Mr John Deutsch FRCS FRCOphth, Consultant Ophthalmologist, Victoria Eye Hospital, Hereford for his valuable insights into Huxley’s eye disease. My research in the United States was significantly extended by the skilful research assistance of my wife, Susan Murray.
I should also like to thank the following individuals who provided assistance, encouragement, advice: Rob Archer (Mira Costa College, CA), Chris Silkin, Professor Cecil Y. Lang, Stan Lauryssens, Professor Bernfried Nugel, Jeremy Lewis, Lord Sackville, Michael-De-la-Noy, Patrick Trevor-Roper, Pat Krig, Rob Humphrey, Professor James Knowlson, Dr Richard Price.
For permission to quote from the published and unpublished writings of Aldous Huxley I am grateful to Dorris Halsey and the Estate of Aldous L. Huxley and Random House (UK). For permission to quote from an unpublished profile of the Huxleys by Mary Hutchinson I am grateful to Lord Hutchinson QC and for permission to quote from the oral history transcripts at the Huntington Library I am grateful to Professor David King Dunaway, University of New Mexico.
Index
The index that appeared in the print version of this title does not match the pages of your eBook. Please use the search function on your eReading device to search for terms of interest. For your reference, the terms that appear in the print index are listed below.
Note: AH = Aldous Huxley
‘Abroad in England’ (essay)
Absalom and Achitophel (Dryden)
Académie du Var
Acton, Harold
Adler, Alfred
Adonis and the Alphabet (essay collection, 1956) entitled Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow in USA
After Many a Summer (novel, 1939) radio version stage version
After Strange Gods (Eliot)
‘After the Fireworks’ (short story)
Air Board
Albany, The, London
Albert I, king of the Belgians
Aldington, Richard
Alexander, F.M.
Alexander technique
Alice in Wonderland (Carroll) Disney film
Allen, Woody
Along the Road (essay collection, 1925)
Alps
American Academy of Arts and Letters
American Psychiatric Association
American Scholar, The (magazine)
Amis, Kingsley
Anrep, Boris
Anthony, Joseph
Antic Hay (novel, 1923) AH’s childhood depicted in AH’s mother depicted in dramatisation of family anger over film possibility moral outrage over Nancy Cunard depicted in reviews Waugh’s praise of
anti-Semitism
Ape and Essence (novel, 1948) stage version
Après Midi d’un Faune, L’ (Mallarmé; translated by AH) 100
‘Arabia Infelix’ (poem)
Arabia Infelix (poetry collection, 1929)
Aretino, Pietro
Arizona desert
Arnold, Julia, see Huxley, Julia
Arnold, Matthew (great-uncle); AH’s edition of birthplace death of son ‘Growing Old’ ideas
Arnold, Thomas (grandfather)
Art and Letters (magazine)
‘Art and the Obvious’ (essay)
Art of Mental Prayer, The (Frost)
Art of Seeing, The (book on defective vision, 1942)
Aspects of the Novel (Forster)
Asquith, Herbert Henry
Astor, J.J.
Athenaeum, The (magazine) Mary Hutchinson’s work for
Athenaeum club, London
Atkinson (painter)
Atman
Auden, W.H.
aun aprendo (motto)
Austen, Jane
Austria
Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War (pamphlet)
Authors’ World Peace Appeal
Ayer, Freddie
‘Babies State Property’ (article)
Bachardy, Don
Bagnold, Enid
Baillot, Juliette, see Huxley, Juliette
ballet, Russian
Balliol College, Oxford
Baltus, George
Baltus, Marguerite, see Nys, Marguerite
Balzac, Honoré de
Bandol, France
Barbados
Barth, Karl
Bates, William H.
Bates method Jeanne Neveux and 366; refuted see also Art of Seeing, The
Baudelaire, Charles
BBC
Beach, Sylvia
Beaton, Cecil
Beaumont, Francis
Beaverbrook, Max
Bedford, Sybille (née von Schoenebeck) on AH’s funeral on AH’s sexual initiation on AH’s stepmother on Chandos interview with AH on Ejutla gun incident first meeting with Huxleys further meetings on Huxleys’ marriage and affairs last meeting with AH lodges with Huxleys on Maria’s appearance on Maria’s bisexuality on Maria’s designation of her own successor
Beerbohm, Marie
Beerbohm, Max
Beirut
Belgenland, SS
Belgium see also Brussels; St Trond
Belize
Bell, Clive affair with Mary Hutchinson and death of Julian Bell eye problems and palm readings
Bell, George, Bishop of Chichester
Bell, Quentin
Bell, Vanessa
Belloc, Hilaire
Below the Equator (film script)
Benda, Julian
Bennett, Arnold
Benoit, Hubert
Berlin
Berlin, Isaiah
Berners, Lord
Bernstein, Leonard
Best Poems of 1926, The
Betts, Frank
Bevan (clergyman)
Beyond the Mexique Bay (essay collection, 1934)
Bienvenu Restaurant, London
Biran, Maine de
Birrell, Francis
Birth of a Nation (film)
Blacker, C.P.
Blacker, P.J.
Blackwell, Basil
Blake, William
Bloomsbury Group AH’s relationship with Maria’s dislike of Omega sexual relationships
Boccaccio, Giovanni
Bodleian Library
Bonnet, Mademoiselle (teacher)
Bonnoli, Alberto
Bookmark (television programme)
‘Bookshop, The’ (short story)
Bordage, Judith, see Huxley, Judith
Bouvard et Pécuchet (Flaubert)
Bracknell Gardens, London
Bradshaw, David
Braille
Braine, John
Brains Trust, The (television programme)
Brave New World (novel, 1932) accuracy of predictions AH later revises timing of predictions Australian ban lifted complaint to FBI over current relevance of depiction of motherhood and the family disliked by Wells and eugenics film rights and Fordism hortatory jingles in humour in Island compared with less successful in USA mini-series musical rights possible influence of Kafka’s The Castle Surrey of AH’s childhood depicted in themes anticipated in earlier work themes of themes repeated in later works
Brave New World Revisited (essay collection, 1958)
Brazil
Brett, Dorothy; advises Maria on relationship and career attempt to steal Lawrence’s ashes character decorates Huxleys’ home depicted in Crome Yellow
Bridges, Robert
Brief Candles (short story collection, 1930)
Britannic (liner)
Broch, Hermann
Brook, Peter
Brooke, Rupert
Brothers Karamazov, The (Dostoyevsky)
Broughton-Adderley, Peter
Brown, Harrison
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
> Brussels: peace congress boycott Royal Library
Buddhism
Bugatti
Burlington Magazine
Burma
Burning Wheel, The (poetry collection)
Burr, Courtney
Burt, Cyril
Burton-Brown, Beatrice
Burton-Brown, Mrs (headmistress)
Buy British campaign
Byron, Lord
Cairo
California, University of: Berkeley Los Angeles Santa Barbara
Campaign Against Hunger
Campbell, Herbert
Campbell, Roy
Canfield, Cass
Cannan, Gilbert
Cannes
Carey, John
Carlyle, Thomas
Carrington, Dorothy AH’s relationship with depicted in Crome Yellow illustrates AH poem suicide
Carroll, Lewis Muffin Man as character from Victorians as characters from see also Alice in Wonderland
Castle, The (Kafka)
Catherine of Siena, St
Catholicism
Cecil, David
Cedars of Lebanon hospital, LA
‘Censorship and Spoken Literature’ (essay)
Central America
Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions
Centre Polytechnique des Études Économiques
Century (magazine)
‘cerebrotonic’
Chambers, Maria
Chance (Conrad)
Chandos, John
Chapelain, Yvette
Chaplin, Charlie
Charterhouse School
Chartreuse de Parme (Stendhal)
Aldous Huxley Page 54