Selected Letters

Of the ten thousand letters that Aldous Huxley wrote, only a fraction have been published. Almost forty years after the first appearance of a volume of Huxley's letters, those that were once considered too sensitive for publication can now be included in a wholly new collection. James Sexton's thoughtful selection opens new perspectives on the personal and intellectual lives of one of the giants of modern English prose and of social commentary in our time. Some of the earliest Huxley letters movingly depict his courageous battle with almost total blindness and his resulting unfitness for service in the Great War. Later letters to his patroness, Lady Ottoline Morrell, demonstrate much of the brilliance that would soon gain Huxley an international reputation as one of his generation's major satirists. Perhaps the most important group of letters in this edition is the sparkling correspondence from Huxley to Bloomsbury hostess Mary Hutchinson, revealing Aldous as a witty yet ardent lover.