Editing Aldous Huxley (section)

== Early life ==
{{See also|Huxley family}}
[[File:LEONARD HUXLEY 1860-1933 JULIAN HUXLEY 1887-1975 ALDOUS HUXLEY 1894-1963 Men of Science and Letters lived here.jpg|thumb|upright|right|[[English Heritage]] [[blue plaque]] at 16 Bracknell Gardens, Hampstead, London, commemorating Aldous, his brother Julian, and his father Leonard]]
Huxley was born in [[Godalming]], Surrey, England, on 26 July 1894.<ref>{{cite newspaper The Times |title= Mr Aldous Huxley |date= 25 November 1963 |issue= 55867 |page= 14}}</ref><ref name="Continuum Encyclopedia">{{cite web |last1=Susser |first1=Eric |editor-first1=A.C. |editor-first2=Naomi |editor-first3=Andrew |editor-last1=Grayling |editor-last2=Goulder |editor-last3=Pyle |title=Huxley, Aldous Leonard |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199754694.001.0001/acref-9780199754694-e-1050 |website=The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy |publisher=Continuum |access-date=14 July 2024 |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780199754694.001.0001 |date=2006 |isbn=978-0-19-975469-4 |quote=Aldous Huxley was born in Godalming, Surrey on 26 July 1894 and died in Los Angeles, California on 17 December}}</ref> He was the third son of the writer and schoolmaster [[Leonard Huxley (writer)|Leonard Huxley]], who edited ''[[The Cornhill Magazine]]'',<ref>{{cite web |url=http://digital.nls.uk/jma/topics/publishing/cornhill.html |title=Cornhill Magazine |website=[[National Library of Scotland]] |access-date=24 April 2016 |archive-date=7 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307080411/http://digital.nls.uk/jma/topics/publishing/cornhill.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> and his first wife, [[Julia Huxley|Julia Arnold]], who founded [[Prior's Field School]]. Julia was the niece of poet and critic [[Matthew Arnold]] and the sister of [[Mary Augusta Ward|Mrs Humphry Ward]]. Julia named him Aldous after a character in one of her sister's novels.<ref>{{cite book |last=Sutherland |first=John |year=1990 |title=Mrs Humphry Ward: Eminent Victorian, Pre-eminent Edwardian |publisher=Clarendon Press |page=167}}</ref> Aldous was the grandson of [[Thomas Henry Huxley]], the [[Zoology|zoologist]], [[agnostic]], and [[controversialist]] who had often been called "Darwin's Bulldog". His brother [[Julian Huxley]] and half-brother [[Andrew Huxley]] also became outstanding biologists. Aldous had another brother, Noel Trevenen Huxley (1889–1914), who took his own life after a period of [[clinical depression]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Holmes |first=Charles Mason |year=1978 |title=Aldous Huxley and the Way to Reality |publisher=Greenwood Press |page=5}}</ref>

As a child, Huxley's nickname was "Ogie", diminutive for "Ogre".<ref name="Bedford-1974">{{cite book |title=Aldous Huxley |last=Bedford |first=Sybille |author-link=Sybille Bedford |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf / Harper & Row |year=1974}}</ref> He was described by his brother, Julian, as someone who frequently contemplated "the strangeness of things".<ref name="Bedford-1974" /> According to his cousin and contemporary Gervas Huxley, he had an early interest in [[drawing]].<ref name="Bedford-1974" />

Huxley's education began in his father's well-equipped botanical laboratory, after which he enrolled at Hillside School near Godalming.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hull |first=James |title=Aldous Huxley, Representative Man |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bX3EAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA6 |year=2004 |publisher=LIT Verlag Münster |isbn=978-3-8258-7663-0 |page=6}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=M.C. Rintoul |title=Dictionary of Real People and Places in Fiction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P3gBAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA509 |date=5 March 2014 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-136-11940-8 |page=509}}</ref> He was taught there by his own mother for several years until she became terminally ill. After Hillside he went on to [[Eton College]]. His mother died in 1908, when he was 14 (his father later remarried). {{anchor|Aldous Huxley eye disease}}He contracted the eye disease ''[[keratitis punctata]]'' in 1911; this "left [him] practically blind for two to three years"<ref>{{cite book |last=Huxley |first=Aldous |year=1939 |chapter=Biography and bibliography (appendix) |title=After Many A Summer Dies The Swan |series=1st Perennial Classic |page=243 |publisher=Harper & Row}}</ref> and "ended his early dreams of becoming a doctor".<ref name="Huxley-2006">{{cite book |title=Brave New World |last=Huxley |first=Aldous |publisher=Harper Perennial Modern Classics / HarperCollins Publishers |year=2006 |chapter=Aldous Huxley: A Life of the Mind}}</ref> In October 1913, Huxley entered [[Balliol College, Oxford]], where he studied English literature.{{sfn|Reiff|2009|p=112}} 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.{{sfn|Reiff|2009|p=112}} His eyesight later partly recovered. He edited ''[[Oxford Poetry]]'' in 1916, and in June of that year graduated [[Bachelor of Arts|BA]] with [[British undergraduate degree classification#First Class Honours|first class honours]].{{sfn|Reiff|2009|p=112}} His brother Julian wrote:

{{Blockquote|I believe his blindness was a blessing in disguise. For one thing, it put paid to his idea of taking up medicine as a career&nbsp;... His uniqueness lay in his universalism. He was able to take all knowledge for his province.<ref>{{cite book |first=Julian |last=Huxley |year=1965 |title=Aldous Huxley 1894–1963: a Memorial Volume |publisher=Chatto & Windus |location=London |page= 22}}</ref>}}

Following his years at Balliol, Huxley, being financially indebted to his father, decided to find employment. He taught [[French language|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. He was mainly remembered as being an incompetent schoolmaster unable to keep order in class. Nevertheless, Blair and others spoke highly of his excellent command of language.<ref>{{cite book |last=Crick |first=Bernard |title=George Orwell: A Life |year=1992 |publisher=Penguin Books |location=London |isbn=978-0-14-014563-2}}</ref>

Huxley also worked for a time during the 1920s at [[Brunner and Mond]], an advanced chemical plant in [[Billingham]] in County Durham, northeast England. According to an introduction to his science fiction novel ''[[Brave New World]]'' (1932), the experience he had there of "an ordered universe in a world of planless incoherence" was an important source for the novel.<ref>{{cite book |chapter=Brave New World (1932) |title=Aldous Huxley : A Study of the Major Novels |year=2013  |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |doi=10.5040/9781472553942.ch-007 |isbn=978-1-4725-1173-7}}</ref>