Aldous Huxley - Free Library Land Online - Contemporary

Brave New World

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

Brave New World is a dystopian novel written in 1931 by English author Aldous Huxley, and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State of genetically modified citizens and an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific developments in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and classical conditioning that are combined to make a utopian society that goes challenged only by a single outsider.

Island

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

In *Island*, his last novel, Huxley transports us to a Pacific island where, for 120 years, an ideal society has flourished. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala, and events begin to move when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and—to his amazement—give him hope.

Brave New World Revisited

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 07:45:54 +0300

The Devils of Loudun

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

In 1634 Urbain Grandier, a handsome and dissolute priest of the parish of Loudun was tried, tortured and burnt at the stake. He had been found guilty of conspiring with the devil to seduce an entire convent of nuns in what was the most sensational case of mass possession and sexual hysteria in history. Grandier maintained his innocence to the end and four years after his death the nuns were still being subjected to exorcisms to free them from their demonic bondage. Huxley's vivid account of this bizarre tale of religious and sexual obsession transforms our understanding of the medieval world.

After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

A Hollywood millionaire with a terror of death, whose personal physician happens to be working on a theory of longevity-these are the elements of Huxley's caustic and entertaining satire on man's desire to live indefinitely. "A highly sensational plot that will keep astonishing you to practically the final sentence." -"The New Yorker."

Antic Hay

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

Antic Hay is one of Aldous Huxley's earlier novels, and like them is primarily a novel of ideas involving conversations that disclose viewpoints rather than establish characters; its polemical theme unfolds against the backdrop of London's post-war nihilistic Bohemia. This is Huxley at his biting, brilliant best, a novel, loud with derisive laughter, which satirically scoffs at all conventional morality and at stuffy people everywhere, a novel that's always charged with excitement.

Eyeless in Gaza

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

Written at the height of his powers immediately after Brave New World, Aldous Huxley's highly acclaimed Eyeless in Gaza is his most personal novel. Huxley's bold, nontraditional narrative tells the loosely autobiographical story of Anthony Beavis, a cynical libertine Oxford graduate who comes of age in the vacuum left by World War I. Unfulfilled by his life, loves, and adventures, Anthony is persuaded by a charismatic friend to become a Marxist and take up arms with Mexican revolutionaries. But when their disastrous embrace of violence nearly kills them, Anthony is left shattered—and is forced to find an alternative to the moral disillusionment of the modern world.

Ape and Essence

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 07:45:05 +0300

In February 2108, the New Zealand Rediscovery Expedition reaches California at last. It is over a century since the world was devastated by nuclear war, but the blight of radioactivity and disease still gnaws away at the survivors. The expedition expects to find physical destruction but they are quite unprepared for the moral degradation they meet. Ape and Essence is Huxley's vision of the ruin of humanity, told with all his knowledge and imaginative genius.

The Genius and the Goddess

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

Thirty years ago, ecstasy and torment took hold of John Rivers, shocking him out of "half-baked imbecility into something more nearly resembling the human form." He had an affair with the wife of his mentor, Henry Maartens--a pathbreaking physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize, and a figure of blinding brilliance--bringing the couple to ruin. Now, on Christmas Eve while a small grandson sleeps upstairs, John Rivers is moved to set the record straight about the great man and the radiant, elemental creature he married, who viewed the renowned genius through undazzled eyes.

Grey Eminence

Tue, 08 May 2012 15:06:23 +0300

A gripping biography by the author of Brave New World
The life of Father Joseph, Cardinal Richelieu's aide, was a shocking paradox. After spending his days directing operations on the battlefield, Father Joseph would pass the night in prayer, or in composing spiritual guidance for the nuns in his care. He was an aspirant to sainthood and a practising mystic, yet his ruthless exercise of power succeeded in prolonging the unspeakable horrors of the Thirty Years' War. In his masterful biography, Huxley explores how an intensely religious man could lead such a life and how he reconciled the seemingly opposing moral systems of religion and politics.

Psychedelics

Fri, 19 May 2017 11:25:10 +0300

Could drugs offer a new way of seeing the world? In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers, was transformed. His account of his experience, and his vision for all that psychedelics could offer to mankind, has influenced writers, artists and thinkers around the world.
The unabridged text of The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.
A series of short books by the world's greatest writers on the experiences that make us human
Also in the Vintage Minis series:
Drinking by John Cheever
Swimming by Roger Deakin
Eating by Nigella Lawson
Desire by Haruki Murakami

Crome Yellow

Thu, 24 Jun 1999 12:41:59 +0300

On vacation from school, Denis goes to stay at Crome, an English country house inhabitated by several of Huxley’s most outlandish characters–from Mr. Barbecue-Smith, who writes 1,500 publishable words an hour by “getting in touch” with his “subconscious,” to Henry Wimbush, who is obsessed with writing the definitive History of Crome. Denis’s stay proves to be a disaster amid his weak attempts to attract the girl of his dreams and the ridicule he endures regarding his plan to write a novel about love and art. Aldous Huxley’s first novel, Crome Yellow, was published in 1921, and, as a comedy of manners and ideas, its relatively realistic setting and format may come as a surprise to fans of his later works such as Point Counter Point and Brave New World. Some who know only Brave New World may not know that as a 16-year-old planning to enter medicine, Aldous Huxley was stricken by a serious eye disease which left him temporarily blind, and which derailed what certainly would have been a prominent career as a physician or scientist. Crome Yellow has often been called “witty,” as well as “talky,” and it certainly owes as much to Vanity Fair as it may, surprisingly to some, owe to Tristram Shandy, although one might think that characters such as Mr. Barbecue-Smith and his remarkable writing theories could have some literary antecedents in Lawrence Sterne. Lambasting the post-Victorian standards of morality, Crome Yellow is a witty masterpiece that, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s words, “is too irnonic to be called satire and too scornful to be called irony.”Aldous Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. He spent the later part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death in 1963. Best known for his novels and wide-ranging output of essays, he also published short stories, poetry, travel writing, and film stories and scripts. Huxley was a humanist and pacifist, but was also latterly interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism. He was also well known for advocating and taking psychedelics. By the end of his life Huxley was considered, in some academic circles, a leader of modern thought and an intellectual of the highest rank.

Point Counter Point

Wed, 14 Sep 1977 21:47:48 +0300

Aldous Huxley's lifelong concern with the dichotomy between passion and reason finds its fullest expression both thematically and formally in his masterpiece *Point Counter Point*. By presenting a vision of life in which diverse aspects of experience are observed simultaneously, Huxley characterizes the symptoms of "the disease of the modern man" in the manner of a composer--themes and characters are repeated, altered slightly, and played off one another in a tone that is at once critical and sympathetic. First published in 1928, Huxley's satiric view of intellectual life in the '20s is populated with characters based on such celebrities as D.H. Lawrence, Katherine Mansfield, Nancy Cunard, and John Middleton Murry, as well as Huxley himself.

Complete Works of Aldous Huxley

Sun, 18 Nov 2018 11:20:53 +0200

English novelist and philosopher Aldous Huxley is famous today for his dystopian science fiction novel ‘Brave New World’, which went on to inspire countless other authors and forms of media. His works are notable for their wit and pessimistic satire, vividly expressing Huxley’s distrust of twentieth century trends in both politics and technology. Huxley also wrote learned non-fiction books, including ‘The Doors of Perception’, detailing his experiences with the hallucinogenic drugs and ‘The Perennial Philosophy’, revealing his growing interest in Hindu mysticism. For the first time in digital publishing, this comprehensive eBook presents Huxley’s complete fictional works, with numerous illustrations, rare texts, informative introductions and the usual Delphi bonus material. (Version 1)

Description

* Beautifully illustrated with images relating to Huxley’s life and works * Concise introductions to the major works
* All 11 novels, with individual contents tables
* Features rare novels, often missed out of collections
* Images of how the books were first published, giving your eReader a taste of the original texts
* Rare story collections available in no other eBook
* Special chronological and alphabetical contents tables for the poetry and the short stories
* Easily locate the poems or short stories you want to read
* Includes Huxley’s rare poetry collections – available in no other collection
* A selection of Huxley’s important non-fiction – spend hours exploring the author’s diverse oeuvre
* Features the author’s memoir ‘The Art of Seeing’ – discover Huxley’s intriguing life
* Scholarly ordering of texts into chronological order and literary genres CONTENTS: The Novels
Crome Yellow
Antic Hay
Those Barren Leaves
Point Counter Point
Brave New World
Eyeless in Gaza
After Many a Summer
Time Must Have a Stop
Ape and Essence
The Genius and the Goddess
Island The Translation
A Virgin Heart by Remy de Gourmont The Shorter Fiction
Limbo
Mortal Coils
Little Mexican
Two or Three Graces
Brief Candles
Miscellaneous Short Stories The Short Stories
List of Short Stories in Chronological Order
List of Short Stories in Alphabetical Order The Poetry Collections
The Burning Wheel
The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems
Leda
The Cicadas and Other Poems The Poems
List of Poems in Chronological Order
List of Poems in Alphabetical Order Selected Non-Fiction
The Olive Tree and Other Essays
What are You Going to Do About it?
The Perennial Philosophy
Science, Liberty and Peace
The Devils of Loudun
The Doors of Perception
Heaven and Hell
Brave New World Revisited The Memoir
The Art of Seeing