Biography
- Born July 26, 1894 in Surrey, England
- Descendant of English poet Matthew Arnold ("Dover Beach" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dover_Beach )
- Attended Eton College
- Mother died in 1908
- Illness in 1911 left him nearly blind for 2-3 years, keeping him from serving in WWI
- Studied English literature at Balliol College in Oxford
- Taught at Eton college for a year - one of his students was Eric Blair, pen name George Orwell
- Worked at a chemical plant in the 1920s to pay his college debts to his father
- Part of the "Bloomsbury Group" including writers Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forester
- Moved to Hollywood, California in 1937
- Wrote for some MGM films, including Pride and Prejudice (1940) and Jane Eyre (1944)
- Wrote a script for Alice in Wonderland, which Walt Disney rejected. The Caterpillar, however, has characteristics inspired by Huxley's experiments with hallucinogens.
- Married Maria Nys in 1919; she died of breast cancer in 1955. Remarried in 1956 to Laura Archera.
- Diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in 1960
- On his deathbed asked his wife to administer intramuscular LSD, which she did
- Died the afternoon of November 22, 1963, hours after JFK was assassinated
- Media coverage of his death was overshadowed by that of JFK and C.S. Lewis, who also died on the 22nd of November.
- Novel: Brave New World, 1932
- Essay Collection: The Doors of Perception, 1954 - on his psychedelic drug experiences
- Essay Collection: The Perennial Philosophy, 1955 - on spirituality and Vedanta (Veda-Centric Hinduism)
- Novel: Island, 1962
- Published 12 novels, 7 short story collections, 9 poetry collections, 23 essay collections, 8 screenplays, 6 dramas, 2 children's books, 47 articles for Verdanta and the West, and 3 travel books.
- humanism
- pacifism
- parapsychology
- mysticism
- advocation of psychedelics
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