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Aldous Huxley

From British Culture
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Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English author and the most famous member of the worldwide known Huxley family. He was born on 26 July 1894 in Godalming, UK and died on 22 November 1963 at the age of 69 in Los Angeles, USA. His works can be found in all three main literary genres (poetry, drama and prose). His most famous work is the 1931 dystopian novel Brave New World. Set in London in the year of 2540 AD, the novel anticipates developments in reproductive technology and sleep-learning that combine to change society. The future society is an embodiment of the ideals that form the basis of futurology. Brave New World brought Huxley worldwide prominence and still today is one of the most influential dystopian novels of all times. Almost all members of Huxley's family were successful and famous or at least important people. His father Leonard Huxley, for instance, was a writer and schoolmaster, while his mother Julia Arnold founded the Prior's Field School in Aldous Huxley's native town Godalming. Aldous' grandfather Thomas Henry Huxley, was a zoologist and controversialist and was called "Darwin's Bulldog". Aldous' mother died when he was 14 years old. Until then she was her teacher and taught him everything he had to know to be accepted in Eton College, where he later became a French teacher. Among his pupils were Stephen Runciman and George Orwell.



Sources:

http://www.online-literature.com/aldous_huxley/

http://somaweb.org/w/huxbio.html

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jhuxley.htm

http://www.spiegel.de/lexikon/54338798.html