June 19 2013 Latest news: Saturday, February 16, 2013 Adam Sonin
explores the career of writer Aldous Huxley, whose best known
work, Brave New World, has been translated into 28 languages.
Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) was the third son of Leonard
Huxley (1860-1933), an assistant master at Charterhouse, editor
of Cornhill Magazine and son of eminent scientist Thomas Henry
Huxley (1825-1895). Aldous’s eldest brother was the zoologist,
philosopher and first director of UNESCO, Sir Julian Sorell
Huxley (1887-1975), whom David Attenborough worked for in his
early days as a BBC trainee. His mother, Julia (1862-1908) was
the niece of the poet Matthew Arnold and, according to a family
biographer, they were “children from whom nothing but the best
would be tolerated”. In 1908, a precocious, pale, blue-eyed boy
with an oversized head started his academic life at Eton
College. This coincided with the unexpected death of his mother,
which Huxley said was “as if a great explosion had taken place
in the family”. His b