Dawn And the Darkest Hour A Study of Aldous Huxley

This title offers an exploration of the life and career of one of the 20th century's greatest novelists. Poet and author George Woodcock traces the famously complex career of a legendary - and controversial - writer. A brilliant and satirical novelist of ideas; a prophet of the future; a pioneer of psychedelic experimentation: Aldous Huxley was a man plagued by excessive intellectual curiosity and a withdrawn melancholic nature. In the dramatic range of his characters and the encyclopaedic quality of his thought, Huxley expressed some of the most interesting and disturbing commentary about the condition of human beings and their relationship to society. As Woodcock began tracing the progress of Huxley's works, he recognised attempts to bring about a synthesis of knowledge "that would give total meaning to existence". In this striking and encompassing critical biography, Woodcock persuasively asks his reader to reconsider Huxley's works as the stages of a spiritual pilgrimage, as he demonstrates that Huxley's entire remarkable oeuvre must be taken as a whole - as a unified "movement out of darkness toward light". A fascinating journey providing a window into Huxley's life and character, revealing an intellectual continually striving for knowledge, "Dawn And The Darkest Hour" is certain to renew interest in one of the most important and influential minds of the 20th century.