Writer, philosopher, attempted filmmaker, and giant of twentieth century literature, Aldous Huxley, most notable for Brave New World and The Doors of Perception, was one of the singular minds of his time, whose intellect has hardly been matched since his mescalin infused death on 22 November, 1963 (the same day Kennedy was assasinated in Dallas).

Huxley, born on 26 July, 1894, was endowed with his particular literary talents by way of his parents. His father, Thomas Huxley, was a controversial writer, known by many as “Darwin’s bulldog,” whose works explored and defended the theory of evolution; his mother was the nice of poet Matthew Arnold. While his formative years were relatively stable, when his mother died of caner in 1908, and his brother Trevenen’s suicide effectively disrupted this serenity. While still in school, Huxley was struck with an eye infection that would leave him visually impaired for the rest of his life, and would commentate on in The Doors of Perception

For as long as I can remember, I have been a poor visualizer. Words, even pregnant words of poets, do not evoke pictures in my mind.

Huxley, ever the student, published his first collection of verse, The Burning Wheel, in 1916 after receiving his First in English Literature from Balliol College. What would follow would be a prolific and unstoppable career of works which would steadily and continually provoke the thoughts of the masses, and stoke the flames of political commentary with novels such as Crome Yellow, Antic Hay, and, of course, Brave New World. The literary legacy left behind Huxley has inspired numerous generations of experimental and insurgent writers who seek to find the truth within their own lives in the same way that Huxley did within his lifetime.

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