Julia named him Aldous after a character in one of her sister's novels. [22] He volunteered for the British Army in January 1916, for the Great War; however, he was rejected on health grounds, being half-blind in one eye. He married Maria Nys in 1919. Huxley became a close friend of Remsen Bird, president of Occidental College. Powerful, Army, Brave New World. His mother, Julia Arnold, was the niece of the poet Matthew Arnold and sister to the author Mrs. Humphrey Ward. He taught French for a year at Eton College, where Eric Blair (who was to take the pen name George Orwell) and Steven Runciman were among his pupils. Nonetheless, Huxley's agnosticism, together with his speculative propensity, made it difficult for him to fully embrace any form of institutionalised religion.[48]. [17] As an author, Elspeth Huxley was well up to Huxley standards, and one of the few wives who was better-known than her husband. He wrote fifty books, including "The Science of Life", co-authored with H. G. Wells and Wells's son, G. P. Wells. [51], Brazilian author João Ubaldo Ribeiro, who as a young journalist spent several evenings in the Huxleys' company in the late 1950s, wrote that Huxley had said to him, with a wry smile, "I can hardly see at all. He married twice and had five children by his first wife, Anne Remsen Schenck. The Huxley family is a British family; several of its members have excelled in science, medicine, arts and literature. Ethel's daughter Joan married Captain (later General) Frank Anstie Buzzard. Aldous Huxley was a deeply humane person as well as a brilliant polymath. In 1938, Huxley befriended Jiddu Krishnamurti, whose teachings he greatly admired. Aldous Huxley, one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family, author and screenwriter, was born on 26 July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey. They had five daughters and three sons: John Collier was not a Huxley by birth, but by marriage twice over: both his wives were daughters of Thomas Henry Huxley. He was knighted in 1974 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1983. [72][73], English writer and philosopher (1894–1963), Psychedelic drug use and mystical experiences, Raychel Haugrud Reiff (2009). They had two children, Rupert Crawshay-Williams and Gillian. Julia was the niece of poet and critic Matthew Arnold and the sister of Mrs. Humphrey Ward. His views, then, were very close to the agnosticism of Thomas Henry Huxley and the humanism of Julian Huxley. Rachel Huxley, the fifth of T.H. In March 1938, Huxley's friend Anita Loos, a novelist and screenwriter, put him in touch with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), which hired him for Madame Curie which was originally to star Greta Garbo and be directed by George Cukor. He himself suffered terribly after the death of his adored mother. Darwin and Huxley themselves, twice each – and there were a number of replica portraits of Darwin and Huxley made by Collier. Young Huxley gra… On 21 October 1949, Huxley wrote to George Orwell, author of Nineteen Eighty-Four, congratulating him on "how fine and how profoundly important the book is." Huxley to eldest sister Lizzie 1853 Huxley Papers at Imperial College 31.21, Proceedings of the 4th Annual Aldous Huxley Symposium, Huntington Library, 2008, Laura Archera Huxley Memorial, Philosophical Research Society, Los Feliz, 2008, Susan McGann, ‘Huxley, Margaret Rachel (1854–1940)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press 2004, "Julia Huxley, the campaign for women's suffrage and Prior's Field School", "The Sir Julian Huxley| Pubs in Selsdon - J D Wetherspoon", "Author, NIMH Epidemiologist Matthew Huxley Dies at 84", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Huxley_family&oldid=1000317418, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.