Acquisitions (28): Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley: Complete Essays. Ed. Robert S. Baker & James Sexton (2000-02)

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Aldous Huxley (1954)

Aldous Huxley: Complete Essays (2000-02)
[Purchased 1/9/19]:

1. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume I: 1920-1925. Ed. Robert S. Baker & James Sexton. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000.


2. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume II: 1926-1929. Ed. Robert S. Baker & James Sexton. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000.


3. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume III: 1930-1935. Ed. Robert S. Baker & James Sexton. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001.


4. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume IV: 1936-1938. Ed. Robert S. Baker & James Sexton. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001.


5. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume V: 1939-56. Ed. Robert S. Baker & James Sexton. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002.


6. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume VI: 1956-1963, and Supplement: 1920-1948. Ed. Robert S. Baker & James Sexton. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002.

So I found volumes 2-6 of this edition of Huxley's complete essays in a second-hand bookshop in Hamilton. Given the lack of a first volume, the price was not unreasonable. And Amazon.com soon supplied the deficiency.

But why? Why do I want Huxley's complete essays? I have read a number of his novels and longer works of non-fiction - Grey Eminence and The Devils of Loudun particularly impressed me. But I've never been a great fan of his essays, though I did dutifully read The Doors of Perception and Heaven and Hell back in the day, when everyone else did.

The collection claims to include 'all of Huxley's published essays as well as a generous selection of shorter reviews and brief occasional pieces.' (vol.1, p.xiii) They've also included the contents of his major essay collections as appendices to each volume. These are, in order:

1. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume I: 1920-1925 (2000):
   • On the Margin (1923)
   • Along The Road: Notes and Essays of a Tourist (1925)


2. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume II: 1926-1929 (2000):
   • Jesting Pilate: The Diary of a Journey (1926)
   • Proper Studies (1927)
   • Do What You Will (1929)


3. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume III: 1930-1935 (2001):
   • Vulgarity in Literature (1930)
   • Music at Night and Other Essays (1931)
   • Beyond the Mexique Bay: A Traveller’s Journal (1934)


4. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume IV: 1936-1938 (2001):
   • The Olive Tree and Other Essays (1936)
   • Ends and Means: An Enquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods employed for their Realization (1937)


5. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume V: 1939-56 (2002):
   • Themes and Variations (1950)
   • The Doors of Perception (1954)
   • UK: Adonis and the Alphabet /
     US: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1956)


6. Huxley, Aldous. Complete Essays. Volume VI: 1956-1963, and Supplement: 1920-1948 (2002):
   • Heaven and Hell (1956)
   • Brave New World Revisited (1958)
   • Literature and Science (1963)

Is there anything of significance missing? Not that I can see. According to the list on Wikipedia, Huxley's non-fictional works break down into the following categories (I've marked in bold the ones I had copies of already):

Aldous Huxley: The Devils of Loudun (1952)

Essays:


1. On the Margin (1923)
2. Essays New and Old (1926)
3. Proper Studies (1927)
4. Do What You Will (1929)
5. Vulgarity in Literature (1930) [single essay]
6. Music at Night and Other Essays (1931)
7. The Olive Tree and Other Essays (1936)
8. Ends and Means (1937)
9. Words and their Meanings (1940)
10. Science, Liberty and Peace (1946)
11. Themes and Variations (1950)
12. The Doors of Perception (1954) [single essay]
13. Heaven and Hell (1956) [single essay]
14. Adonis and the Alphabet / Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow (1956)
15. Brave New World Revisited (1958) [single essay]
16. Collected Essays (1958)
17. On Art and Artists (1960)
18. Literature and Science (1963) [single essay]
19. Moksha: Writings on Psychedelics and the Visionary Experience 1931–63 (1977)
20. The Human Situation: Lectures at Santa Barbara, 1959 (1977)

Travel:


21. Along The Road: Notes and Essays of a Tourist (1925)
22. Jesting Pilate: The Diary of a Journey (1926)
23. Beyond the Mexique Bay: A Traveller’s Journal (1934)

Miscellaneous:


24. Texts and Pretexts: An Anthology with Commentaries (1932)
25. Pacifism and Philosophy (1936)
26. An Encyclopedia of Pacifism (1937)
27. They Still Draw Pictures: A Collection of 60 Drawings Made by Spanish Children During the War (1938)
28. The Art of Seeing (1942) [non-fiction]
29. Grey Eminence: A Study in Religion and Politics (1942)
30. The Perennial Philosophy (1946)
31. The Devils of Loudun (1952)
32. The Politics of Ecology (1962)

Donald Watt, ed.: The Collected Poetry of Aldous Huxley (1971)

What else? I would quite like a copy of his Collected Poetry, but only really for completeness' sake. I already have the bulk of his poems in the following book:

Mortal Coils: Five Stories / Verses & a Comedy: Early Poems, Leda, The Cicadas, The World of Light. 1922 & 1920. Illustrations by Patrick Rixson. Geneva: Heron Books, 1969.

Aldous Huxley: Texts and Pretexts (1932)

Now that I have Texts and Pretexts, there aren't really any other substantive non-fiction books I need:

Huxley, Aldous. Texts and Pretexts: An Anthology with Commentaries. 1932. London: Chatto & Windus, 1959.

Aldous Huxley: After the Fireworks (1957)

The only substantive work of fiction I'm lacking is the recent reprint of three early novellas, none of them included in his Collected Short Stories (1957). These are, respectively, 'After the Fireworks' (1930), 'Uncle Spencer' (1924), and 'Two or Three Graces' (1926):

After the Fireworks: Three Novellas. 1924, 1926, 1930. Foreword by Garry Giddins. Harper Perennial. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2016.

This, too, I have on order at present.

Aldous Huxley: After the Fireworks (2016)

The only other important text I should mention here is Sybille Bedford's eccentric yet stimulating biography, which I've owned for years but have only just read:

Sybille Bedford: Aldous Huxley: The Apparent Stability / The Turning Points (1973-74)

So here's my collection of Huxley-ana as it stands at present. You can see a list of what I'm still missing here:

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Leonard Huxley
(1894-1963)

Novels:


1. Huxley, Aldous. Crome Yellow: A Novel. 1921. The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley. London: Chatto & Windus, 1949.


2. Huxley, Aldous. Antic Hay: A Novel. 1923. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1950.


3. Huxley, Aldous. Those Barren Leaves: A Novel. 1925. Harmondsworth: Penguin, n.d.


4. Huxley, Aldous. Point Counter Point: A Novel. 1928. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972.


5. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World: A Novel. 1932. Foreword by the Author. 1950. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974.


6. Huxley, Aldous. Eyeless in Gaza: A Novel. 1936. Penguin Modern Classics. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.


7. Huxley, Aldous. After Many a Summer: A Novel. 1939. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959.


8. Huxley, Aldous. Time Must Have a Stop. 1945. London: Chatto & Windus, 1950.


9. Huxley, Aldous. Ape and Essence: A Novel. 1949. The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley. London: Chatto & Windus, 1951.


10. Huxley, Aldous. The Genius and the Goddess. London: Chatto & Windus, 1955.


11. Huxley, Aldous. Island: A Novel. 1962. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964.


12. Huxley, Aldous, & Christopher Isherwood. Jacob's Hands. Introductions by Laura Archera Huxley & David Bradshaw. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc., 1998.

Stories:


13. Huxley, Aldous. Mortal Coils: Five Stories / Verses & a Comedy: Early Poems, Leda, The Cicadas, The World of Light. 1922 & 1920. Illustrations by Patrick Rixson. Geneva: Heron Books, 1969.


14. Huxley, Aldous. Collected Short Stories. 1957. The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley. London: Chatto & Windus, 1969.


15. Huxley, Aldous. After the Fireworks: Three Novellas. 'After the Fireworks,' 1930, 'Two or Three Graces,' 1926, 'Uncle Spencer,' 1924. Foreword by Garry Giddins. Harper Perennial. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2016.

Travel:


16. Huxley, Aldous. Jesting Pilate: The Diary of a Journey. 1926. Geneva: Heron Books, 1969.


17. Huxley, Aldous. Beyond the Mexique Bay: A Traveller’s Journal. 1934. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1955.

Non-fiction:


18. Huxley, Aldous. Music at Night and Other Essays. 1931. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1950.


19. Huxley, Aldous. Rotunda: A Selection from the Works of Aldous Huxley. London: Chatto & Windus, 1932.


20. Huxley, Aldous. Texts and Pretexts: An Anthology with Commentaries. 1932. The Collected Works of Aldous Huxley, 17. 1949. London: Chatto & Windus, 1959.


21. Huxley, Aldous. Ends and Means: An Enquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into the Methods employed for their Realization. London: Chatto & Windus, 1937.


22. Huxley, Aldous. Grey Eminence: A Study in Religion and Politics. London: Chatto & Windus, 1942.


23. Huxley, Aldous. The Perennial Philosophy. 1946. Fontana Books. London: Collins, 1961.


24. Huxley, Aldous. The Devils of Loudun. 1952. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.


25. Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception & Heaven and Hell. 1954 & 1956. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1965.


26. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Revisited. 1958. Perennial Library. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1965.


27. Huxley, Aldous. Collected Essays. 1958. London: Chatto & Windus, 1960.

Letters:


28. Smith, Grover, ed. Letters of Aldous Huxley. London: Chatto & Windus Ltd, 1969.

Secondary:


29. Bedford, Sybille. Aldous Huxley: A Biography. Volume One: 1894-1939. 2 vols. London: Chatto & Windus / Collins, 1973.


30. Bedford, Sybille. Aldous Huxley: A Biography. Volume Two: 1939-1963. 2 vols. London: Chatto & Windus / Collins, 1974.

Grover Smith, ed.: Letters of Aldous Huxley (1969)

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