Editing Brave New World (section)

==History==
Huxley wrote ''Brave New World'' while living in [[Sanary-sur-Mer]], France, in the four months from May to August 1931.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Meckier|first=Jerome|date=1979|title=A Neglected Huxley "Preface": His Earliest Synopsis of Brave New World|journal=Twentieth Century Literature|volume=25|issue=1|pages=1–20|doi=10.2307/441397|jstor=441397|issn=0041-462X}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news|last=Murray|first=Nicholas|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/dec/13/featuresreviews.guardianreview27|title=Nicholas Murray on his life of Huxley|date=2003-12-13|work=The Guardian|access-date=2020-04-13|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.sanary.com/a-huxley-in-sanary-1-introduction.html |title=A. Huxley in Sanary 1 - Introduction |website=www.sanary.com |access-date=27 September 2019 |archive-date=11 January 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170111125115/http://www.sanary.com/a-huxley-in-sanary-1-introduction.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> By this time, Huxley had established himself as a writer and social satirist. He was a contributor to ''[[Vanity Fair (American magazine 1913-1936)|Vanity Fair]]'' and ''[[Vogue (magazine)|Vogue]]'' magazines and had published a collection of his poetry (''The Burning Wheel'', 1916) and four satirical novels, ''[[Crome Yellow]]'' (1921), ''[[Antic Hay]]'' (1923), ''[[Those Barren Leaves]]'' (1925) and ''[[Point Counter Point]]'' (1928). ''Brave New World'' was Huxley's fifth novel and first [[dystopia]]n work.

A short passage in ''Crome Yellow'' foreshadows ''Brave New World'', showing that Huxley had such a future in mind already in 1921. Mr Scogan, one of the earlier book's characters, describes an "impersonal generation" of the future that will "take the place of Nature's hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world".

Huxley said that ''Brave New World'' was inspired by the [[utopia]]n novels of [[H. G. Wells]], including ''[[A Modern Utopia]]'' (1905), and as a parody of ''[[Men Like Gods]]'' (1923).<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Wickes |first1=George |last2=Fraser |first2=Raymond |title=Aldous Huxley, The Art of Fiction No. 24 |journal=[[Paris Review]] |date=1960 |volume=Spring 1960 |issue=23 |url=https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4698/the-art-of-fiction-no-24-aldous-huxley |access-date=24 August 2022 |language=en |issn=0031-2037 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100922002704/http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4698/the-art-of-fiction-no-24-aldous-huxley |archive-date=22 September 2010}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-link=Aldous Huxley |first=Aldous |last=Huxley |title=Letters of Aldous Huxley |chapter=letter to Mrs. Kethevan Roberts, 18 May 1931 |editor-first=Grover |editor-last=Smith |place=New York and Evanston |publisher=Harper & Row |year=1969 |page=348 |quote=I am writing a novel about the future – on the horror of the Wellsian Utopia and a revolt against it. Very difficult. I have hardly enough imagination to deal with such a subject. But it is none the less interesting work.}}</ref> Wells' hopeful vision of the future gave Huxley the idea to begin writing a parody of the novels, which became ''Brave New World''. He wrote in a letter to Mrs. Arthur Goldsmith, an American acquaintance, that he had "been having a little fun pulling the leg of H. G. Wells" but then he "got caught up in the excitement of [his] own ideas".<ref>{{cite book |last=Heje |first=Johan |chapter=Aldous Huxley |editor-last=Harris-Fain |editor-first=Darren |title=British Fantasy and Science-Fiction Writers, 1918–1960 |location=Detroit |publisher=Gale Group |year=2002 |page=100 |isbn=0-7876-5249-0}}</ref> Unlike the most popular optimistic utopian novels of the time, Huxley sought to provide a frightening vision of the future. Huxley referred to ''Brave New World'' as a "negative utopia", somewhat influenced by Wells's own ''[[The Sleeper Awakes]]'' (dealing with subjects like corporate tyranny and behavioural conditioning) and the works of [[D. H. Lawrence]].<ref>Lawrence biographer [[Frances Wilson (writer)|Frances Wilson]] writes that "the entire novel is saturated in Lawrence" and cites "Lawrence's New Mexico" in particular. Wilson, Frances (2021). ''Burning Man: The Trials of D.H. Lawrence'', New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, pp. 404–405.</ref>

For his part, Wells published, two years after ''Brave New World'', his utopian ''[[The Shape of Things to Come|Shape of Things to Come]]''. Seeking to rebut the argument of Huxley's Mustapha Mond—that moronic underclasses were a necessary "social gyroscope" and that a society composed solely of intelligent, assertive "Alphas" would inevitably disintegrate in internecine struggle—Wells depicted a stable egalitarian society emerging after several generations of a reforming elite having complete control of education throughout the world. In the future depicted in Wells's book, posterity remembers Huxley as "a reactionary writer".<ref>Nathaniel Ward "The visions of Wells, Huxley and Orwell—why was the Twentieth Century impressed by Distopias rather than Utopias?" in Ophelia Ruddle (ed.) Proceedings of the 2003 Annual Multidisciplinary Round Table on Twentieth Century Culture"</ref> The scientific futurism in ''Brave New World'' is believed to be appropriated from ''[[Daedalus; or, Science and the Future|Daedalus]]''<ref>{{cite book |author-link=J. B. S. Haldane |first=J.B.S. |last=Haldane |title=Daedalus; or, Science and the Future |title-link=Daedalus; or, Science and the Future |year=1924}}</ref> by [[J. B. S. Haldane]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Disturbing the Universe |at=Chapter 15 |first=Freeman |last=Dyson |publisher=Basic Books |year=1976}}</ref>

The events of the [[Great Depression in the United Kingdom|Great Depression]] in Great Britain in 1931, with its mass unemployment and the abandonment of the gold standard, persuaded Huxley to assert that stability was the "primal and ultimate need" if civilisation was to survive the present crisis.<ref name="Bradshaw">{{cite book |author=Bradshaw, David |chapter=Introduction |title=Brave New World |editor=Huxley, Aldous |editor-link=Aldous Huxley |place=London, UK |publisher=Vintage |year=2004 |edition=Print}}</ref> The ''Brave New World'' character Mustapha Mond, Resident World Controller of Western Europe, is named after Sir [[Alfred Mond, 1st Baron Melchett|Alfred Mond]]. Shortly before writing the novel, Huxley visited the [[Billingham Manufacturing Plant]], Mond's technologically advanced factory near [[Billingham]], north-east England, and it made a great impression on him.<ref name="Bradshaw"/>{{rp|xxii}}

Huxley used the setting and characters in his science fiction novel to express widely felt anxieties, particularly the fear of losing individual identity in the fast-paced world of the future. An early trip to the United States gave ''Brave New World'' much of its character. Huxley was outraged by the culture of youth, commercial cheeriness, sexual promiscuity and the inward-looking nature of many Americans; he had also found the book ''My Life and Work'' by [[Henry Ford]] on the boat to North America and he saw the book's principles applied in everything he encountered after leaving San Francisco.<ref name="Bradshaw"/>{{rp|viii}}