Complete Essays
Aldous Huxley, 1956-1963
Published on 11. January 2003
Book
Hardback
416 pages
978-1-56663-464-9 (ISBN)
Description
This sixth and concluding volume of Huxley's essays brings to completion what critics have applauded as "a remarkable publishing event...beautifully produced and authoritatively edited" (Jeffrey Hart). Here the reader will find Huxley's final assessment of modern society. Revisiting the issues that informed his utopian nightmare, Brave New World, he addresses a broad range of contemporary topics, from ecology, sociobiology, and psychology to politics, history, and religion. His concern with the problems of modernity is everywhere evident. This volume includes his final meditation on art and religion ("Shakespeare and Religion") as well as two recently discovered essays on science, technology, and "modern life." Volume VI also marks Huxley's intervention in the C. P. Snow / F. R. Leavis controversy of the "two cultures." The relationship between science and humanistic culture was a vigorously contended issue in the early 1960s, drawing writers like Lionel Trilling and scientists like J. Robert Oppenheimer into the debate. Huxley's response was Literature and Science, his last book and a summation of his theory of art and culture. As one of the last of the modernist public intellectuals, his essays comprise a refiguration of modern cultural history in all its manifestations.
Reviews / Votes
Perusing Volume One, I was struck by the sensitivity and the unerring perception in these unknown reviews, ultimately my most enjoyable reading of the year. -- Robert Craft, conductor and writer on music * Times Literary Supplement, (Books Of The Year, Dec.) * These exceptionally edited and organized books...display a wide-ranging intellect unmatched among twentieth-century men of letters. * Atlantic Monthly * Huxley was among the few writers who played with ideas so freely, so gaily, with such virtuosity, that the responsive reader was dazzled and excited. -- Isaiah Berlin Fascinating...a welcome collection. * National Review * To read all the essays in sequence is like being enrolled at the college of your dreams. * The New Yorker * His reading was immense, his taste was impeccable, and his ear acute...His place in English literature is unique and is certainly assured. -- T.S. Eliot A remarkable publishing event...these volumes return Huxley from our forgetfulness so as to enjoy his fine intelligence, prose and exemplary strengths. -- Jeffrey Hart * The Washington Times * These exceptionally edited and organized books, with lengthy, detailed, and astute introductions display a wide-ranging intellect unmatched among twentieth-century men of letters. -- Benjamin Schwartz * Book Review Digest * The sixth and final volume of Aldous Huxley's essays completes a series of quite extraordinary richness. * Virginia Quarterly * He writes with an easy assurance and a command of classical and modern cross-references. -- Christopher Hitchens * Los Angeles Times * There is much to enjoy in these volumes...they are important as a document of his times. * Economist * The editors...have done their job with commendable thoroughness. -- P. N. Furbank * Times Literary Supplement *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Product notice
Laminated cover
Dimensions
Height: 241 mm
Width: 163 mm
Thickness: 36 mm
Weight
798 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-56663-464-9 (9781566634649)
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Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) was one of the most important novelists of the twentieth century. Robert S. Baker is professor of literature at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and author of The Dark Historic Page and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. James Sexton teaches English at Camosun College in British Columbia.