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Aldous Huxley was born just before the turn of the 19th century in Surrey, near London. Several members of his family were academically inclined; his mother and father were a school founder and a schoolmaster (respectively) and two of his brothers were biologists. When he was fourteen, his mother, who was also his teacher at school, died from cancer. from ages seventeen to twenty eye disease deprived him of sight, which returned greatly diminished, disqualifying him from serving in the first world war.

He taught French for a year at Eton college to reimburse his father for his tuition for Balliol. He was recalled as a failure of a teacher but it was noted by one of his pupils, Eric Blair (who would later write under the name George Orwell), that he had impressive language abilities. In his twenties he moved to Garsington, a village near Oxford. Here he married and had a son, who grew up to become an epidemiologist, studying epidemics.


In 1937, a forty year old Aldous moved to Hollywood, where he became focused on spiritualism. Huxley applied for US citizenship, which was continually deferred because of his refusal to literally fight for the US. In his old age he became a huge fan of both eating psychedelic drugs and not wearing his glasses. He even took a weak dose of LSD on his deathbed.


"Aldous Huxley - Biography." Online-Literature.com. 1 May. 2010. http://www.online-literature.com/aldous_huxley/.

"entry for Aldous Huxley." Wikipedia. 1 May. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley.