A collage of book covers on a light blue background. Titles include I Capture the Castle, Beloved, The Secret History and The Wind in the Willows.

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Reading lists

100 must-read classics, as chosen by our readers

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Must-read sci-fi classics

Brave New World, Slaughterhouse 5 and The Handmaid's Tale photography

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Dystopian classics that make timely reading

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What to read after The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood on why we should all read Brave New World

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Features

Four Full-Cast Dramatisations of Modern Classics

Banned Books: A BBC Radio Drama Collection

Four modern masterpieces that dared to push boundaries and disrupt the status quo 
 
Deviant. Depraved. Dangerous. Denounced for their transgressive themes and inflammatory ideas, these 20th-century classics have all been considered so seditious that they had to be suppressed. Find out what made these iconic works so threatening to governments worldwide in these superlative dramatisations, featuring stellar casts and specially composed music. 
 
Ulysses – Prosecuted for obscenity in the UK and US, James Joyce’s seminal novel tells the combined stories of Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom, as they wander through Dublin on one ordinary day: 16th June 1904. 
 
The Well of Loneliness – Radclyffe Hall’s groundbreaking tale of lesbian love was judged as obscene soon after its publication in 1928, and banned in the UK for over 20 years. It centres around Stephen, a baby girl born to well-to-do parents who grows up feeling ‘different’ and knows she will never be attracted to a man. But will she always be an outcast? 
 
Brave New World – Aldous Huxley's visionary dystopian fable, banned in Ireland and Australia when it first appeared in 1932, portrays a corrupt future society where promiscuity is the norm, eugenics a respectable science and the drug soma is the opiate of the people. Token dissidents Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson long to be free – but it is an outsider, John ‘the Savage’, who shows them the true meaning of rebellion. 
 
Nineteen Eighty-Four – London, chief city of Airstrip One. Big Brother stares out from every poster, the Thought Police uncover every act of betrayal. When Ministry of Truth employee Winston Smith finds love with Julia, the duo begin to question the Party – but for enemies of the state, Room 101 awaits… George Orwell’s classic tale, banned in the Soviet Union until 1988 and still one of the most-challenged books in the USA today. 
 
The star-studded casts of these dramatisations include Andrew Scott, Henry Goodman, Niamh Cusack, Stephen Rea, Valerie Edmond, Amanda Root, Justin Salinger, John Coy, Milton Lopes, Christopher Eccleston, Pippa Nixon and Tim Pigott-Smith. 
 
First published 1918 (Ulysses), 1928 (The Well of Loneliness), 1932 (Brave New World), 1949 (Nineteen Eighty-Four) 
 
 
Cast and credits 
 
Ulysses 
Cast: Stephen Rea, Andrew Scott, Kevin Trainor, Harry Livingstone, Janet Moran, Ronan Raftery, Jim Norton, Joshua Ellershaw, Aidan Dunlop, Henry Goodman, Niamh Cusack, Grainne Keenan, Stephen Hogan, Des McAleer, Christine Absalom, Jonathan Forbes, Bronagh Taggart, Sean Campion, John Rogan, Peter Hamilton Dyer, Joshua Ellershaw, Lorcan Cranitch, Gerard McDermott, Denise Gough, Pip Donaghy, Frances Barber, Susie Riddell 
 
Written by James Joyce 
Dramatised by Robin Brooks 
Directed by Jeremy Mortimer and Jonquil Panting 
Produced by Jeremy Mortimer 
Executive producer: Claire Grove 
Singer: Daire Halpin 
Pianist: Colin Guthrie 
 
The Well of Loneliness 
Cast: Valerie Edmond, Alexandra Bateman, Roberta Kerr, Rob Pickvance, Amanda Root, Sarah Parks, Paul Warriner, Russell Dixon, Katy Cavanagh, Sara Kaplan, Thomas Hudson, Martin Reeve, Paul Warriner, Katy Cavanagh, Malcolm Hebden 
 
Written by Radclyffe Hall 
Dramatised by Sarah Woods 
Directed by Melanie Harris 
Music composed and performed by Odaline de la Martinez 
Celloist: Andy Wardale 
Violinist: Janet Fuste 
 
Brave New World 
Cast: Justin Salinger, Jonathan Coy, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Anton Lesser, Milton Lopes, Karina Fernandez, Nicola Ferguson, Sam Rix, James Lailey, Sean Baker, Scarlett Brookes, Brian Protheroe, Nick Underwood 
 
Written by Aldous Huxley 
Dramatised by Jonathan Holloway 
Directed by David Hunter 
 
Nineteen Eighty-Four 
Cast: Christopher Eccleston, Pippa Nixon, Tim Pigott-Smith, Kim Wall, Robert Blythe, Sam Alexander, Susie Riddell, Christine Absalom, Don Gilet, Joe Sims and Joshua Swinney 
 
Written by George Orwell 
Dramatised by Jonathan Holloway 
Directed by Jeremy Mortimer 
 
 
(P) 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. © 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Brave New World

Vintage Quarterbound Classics

In a future London, governed by genetic engineering , Bernard Marx begins to question a society that has abolished family, privacy, and history in the name of stability. 
 
In the World State, citizens are conditioned from birth and kept docile through consumerism and the drug, Soma. But when Bernard encounters John, a man raised outside this system, the fragile logic of enforced happiness begins to fracture. 
 
Through Bernard Marx and John, Huxley examines freedom, moral responsibility, and the human need for meaning. 
 
This classic work of dystopian literary fiction explores identity, alienation, and the suppression of individuality within a world engineered for obedience. 
 
'A masterpiece of speculation... As vibrant, fresh, and somehow shocking as it was when I first read it' Margaret Atwood 
 
'A grave warning... Provoking, stimulating, shocking and dazzling' Observer. 
 
**One of the BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**

Including Brave New World, Antic Hay, The Devils & more

Aldous Huxley: A BBC Radio Collection

BBC Radio adaptations of Aldous Huxley&rsquo;s finest works &ndash; plus a bonus documentary programme 
 &lsquo;Over nine hours&rsquo; worth of quality drama&hellip; The stories presented in &lsquo;A BBC Radio Collection&rsquo; combine to give the listener a taste of Huxley&rsquo;s versatility as a writer. His vivid imagination always leaves the listener with philosophical ideas to ponder.&rsquo; Greg Jameson, Entertainment Focus 
 
Philosopher, pacifist, psychonaut and prophet, Aldous Huxley was one of the 20th century&rsquo;s pre-eminent intellectuals and writers. The author of over 50 books, he was nominated for the Nobel Prize nine times, and elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962, a year before his death. Known for his mordant satire and visionary ideas, Huxley spanned the period from post-First World War disillusionment to mid-century mysticism, and the works in this collection reflect his literary evolution.Antic Hay, his witty, ironic portrait of the glittering hedonism of 1920s London, is dramatised by award-winning playwright Mike Harris, and stars James Cooney and Emily Pithon.Originally a short story, Huxley&rsquo;s dark comedy of manners The Gioconda Smile was adapted as a hit West End play in 1948. This BBC Radio dramatisation stars Peter Bowles as the womanizing Henry Hutton, about to marry his second wife but accused of killing his first.Brave New World is Huxley&rsquo;s classic 1932 tale of a future totalitarian dystopia, where promiscuity is the norm, eugenics a respectable science and the drug Soma is freely available. Adapted for Radio 4, it stars Jonathan Coy, Justin Salinger, Milton Lopes and Anton Lesser.Aldous Huxley&rsquo;s 1953 novel The Devils of Loudun, an imagined account of a real-life witch trial in 17th-century France, was revamped for the stage as The Devils in 1960. A gripping tale of mass hysteria, religious and sexual obsession and alleged demonic possession, this radio version stars Michael Bryant and Sarah Badel.The Dwarves, a full-cast drama based on Chapter 13 of Crome Yellow, tells the story of Sir Hercules and his wife Filomena, whose country-house haven for dwarves like themselves is unexpectedly threatened. David Learner, Claire Faulconbridge and Garard Green star.Concluding our collection are readings of five of his short stories set in the 1920s and a fascinating biographical documentary. Edward Petherbridge reads &lsquo;Cynthia&rsquo;, &lsquo;The Bookshop&rsquo;, &lsquo;Eupompus Gave Splendour to Art by Numbers&rsquo;, &lsquo;Fard&rsquo; and &lsquo;The Portrait&rsquo;, while the documentary All Those Vile Bodies explores the contradictions of the satirist of the brittle 20s turned prescient critic of 20th-century progress. Valentine Cunningham presents, with contributions from Sybille Bedford, Lord Jenkins, Sir Stephen Spender, Gavin Ewart, Julian Symons and Lewis Wolpert, and archive recordings of Huxley, his brother Julian and contemporaries.First published 1920 (&lsquo;Cynthia&rsquo;, &lsquo;The Bookshop&rsquo;, &lsquo;Eupompus Gave Splendour to Art by Numbers&rsquo;), 1921 (&lsquo;The Dwarves&rsquo;), 1923 (Antic Hay), 1924 (&lsquo;Fard&rsquo;, &lsquo;The Portrait&rsquo;), 1932 (Brave New World), 1948 (The Gioconda Smile), 1960 (The Devils)&copy; 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.(P) 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The Time Machine, We, The Trial, Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Chrysalids

Classic Dystopias: A BBC Radio Drama Collection

Full-cast dramatisations of six masterpieces from the founding fathers of dystopian fiction 
 
Dark and disturbing, provocative and prescient, dystopian literature has long captured our imagination with its nightmarish visions of forbidding future worlds. Included here are six classic novels of time-travel, totalitarianism and terror, written by some of the masters of speculative fiction and adapted for radio with all-star casts. 
 
The Time Machine by HG Wells - A Victorian inventor takes a fateful journey into the far future, where mankind has diverged into two species - the Eloi and the Morlocks. Robert Glenister and William Gaunt star in this pioneering science fiction adventure. 
 
We by Evgeny Zamyatin - In a post-revolutionary future, OneState is ruled according to the principles of rationality. The penalty for dissent is death. But when engineer D-503 meets the beautiful 1-330, he begins to question everything... Starring Anton Lesser, Don Warrington and Brigit Forsyth. 
 
The Trial by Franz Kafka - Josef K is an ordinary man who lives a quiet life. Then, one morning, he is awoken by two men and arrested - but what is his crime? Mike Gwylim stars in this gripping dramatisation by Hanif Kureishi. 
 
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - It's 2116 and Helmholtz Watson and Bernard Marx are token rebels in a society where eugenics, promiscuity and happiness are gently enforced. Into this world comes an outsider, John, who will show the duo what rebellion really means... Starring Justin Salinger, John Coy and Milton Lopes. 
 
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell - Winston Smith works for the Ministry of Truth, rewriting history to suit the Party. When he finds love with Julia, he awakens to new possibilities - but free thinking is forbidden, and Big Brother is always watching... Christopher Eccleston and Pippa Nixon star in Orwell's chilling tale. 
 
The Chrysalids by John Wyndham - In a post-apocalyptic world devastated by genetic mutation, the God-respecting people of Waknuk regard deviation as the work of the Devil. Young David and his friends can communicate by telepathy: but as Mutants, they must hide their powers or face the consequences of discovery... Starring Matthew Beard, Verity-May Henry and Emma Cunniffe. 
 
First published 1899 (The Time Machine), 1921 (We), 1925 (The Trial), 1932 (Brave New World), 1949 (Nineteen Eighty-Four), 1955 (The Chrysalids) 
 
(P) 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. © 2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

H. G. Wells (Author) H.G. Wells was a professional writer and journalist who published more than a hundred books, including pioneering science fiction novels, histories, essays and programmes for world regeneration. He was a founding member of numerous movements including Liberty and PEN International - the world's oldest human rights organization - and his Rights of Man laid the groundwork for the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Wells' controversial and progressive views on equality and the shape of a truly developed nation remain directly relevant to our world today. He was, in Bertrand Russell's words, 'an important liberator of thought and action'. Franz Kafka (Author) Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was born of Jewish parents in Prague. Several of his story collections were published in his lifetime and his novels, The Trial, The Castle and Amerika, were published posthumously by his editor Max Brod. George Orwell (Author) George Orwell (1903–1950) is one of England's most famous writers and social commentators. He is the author of the classic political satire Animal Farm and the dystopian masterpiece Nineteen Eighty-Four. He is also well known for his essays and journalism, particularly his works covering his travels and his time fighting in the Spanish Civil War. His writing is celebrated for its piercing clarity, purpose and wit and his books continue to be bestsellers all over the world. John Wyndham (Author) John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Benyon Harris was born in 1903. He had a variety of careers before becoming an author, but decided to take up writing professionally in 1925. Under several pseudonyms, he wrote numerous short stories for American science fiction magazines. During World War II, he worked in the Ministry of Information before serving in the army, and took part in the Normandy landings. He returned to writing in 1946, using the pen name John Wyndham, and The Day of the Triffids was published in 1951. It was a huge success, and was followed by seven further novels. He died in 1969.

Brave New World: A Graphic Novel

[A] highly engaging adaptation of the famous novel... Fordham utilises the graphic novel format to the full, with exciting, near-cinematic renderings of the action...that bring the narrative to life, giving Huxley's seminal work a sense of urgency and visual appeal that makes it more readily accessible for a whole new audience, while for the most part staying faithful to the original text

Aldous Huxley (Author) Aldous Huxley was born on 26 July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey. He began writing poetry and short stories in his early 20s, but it was his first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), which established his literary reputation. This was swiftly followed by Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928) – bright, brilliant satires in which Huxley wittily but ruthlessly passed judgement on the shortcomings of contemporary society. For most of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy and an account of his experiences there can be found in Along the Road (1925). The great novels of ideas, including his most famous work Brave New World (published in 1932, this warned against the dehumanising aspects of scientific and material 'progress') and the pacifist novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) were accompanied by a series of wise and brilliant essays, collected in volume form under titles such as Music at Night (1931) and Ends and Means (1937). In 1937, at the height of his fame, Huxley left Europe to live in California, working for a time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. As the West braced itself for war, Huxley came increasingly to believe that the key to solving the world's problems lay in changing the individual through mystical enlightenment. The exploration of the inner life through mysticism and hallucinogenic drugs was to dominate his work for the rest of his life. His beliefs found expression in both fiction (Time Must Have a Stop,1944, and Island, 1962) and non-fiction (The Perennial Philosophy, 1945; Grey Eminence, 1941; and the account of his first mescaline experience, The Doors of Perception, 1954). Huxley died in California on 22 November 1963. Fred Fordham (Author, Illustrator) Fred Fordham was born in 1985 and grew up in north London. Before beginning work in comics and graphic novels he worked as a traditional portrait painter and muralist. His first published work in the medium appeared in France and he has since written and illustrated stories for various publications, most recently illustrating Philip Pullman's debut graphic-novel, The Adventures of John Blake: Mystery of the Ghost Ship.

The graphic novel adaptation of the classic dystopian masterpiece. From Fred Fordham, graphic novelist behind the sensational TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD graphic novel. 
 
Originally published in 1932, Brave New World is one of the most revered and profound works of twentieth century literature. Touching on themes of control, humanity, technology, and influence, Aldous Huxley's enduring classic is a reflection and a warning of the age in which it was written, yet remains frighteningly relevant today. 
 
With its surreal imagery and otherworldly backdrop, Brave New World adapts beautifully to the graphic novel form. Fred Fordham's singular artistic flair and attention to detail and color captures this thought-provoking novel as never before, and introduces it to a new generation, and countless modern readers, in a fresh and compelling way.

The Devils of Loudun

Huxley tells the strange true story of mass demonic possession and sexual hysteria which took place in the small town of Loudun in France, in the 1600s

Huxley has reconstructed with skill, learning and horror one of the most appalling incidents in the history of witch-hunting during its seventeenth-century heyday. The Devils of Loudun is fascinating, erudite, and instinct with intellectual vitality

Huxley's analysis of motive, his exposition of the unconscious causes of behaviour, his exposure of the perversions to which religious emotion is subject, his discursions on the witch cult, on mass hysteria, on sexual eccentricity have the brilliance that all his writing has had from the very beginning

His masterpiece, and perhaps the most enjoyable book about spirituality ever written. In telling the grotesque, bawdy and true story of a 17th-century convent of cloistered French nuns who contrived to have a priest they never met burned alive ...Huxley painlessly conveys a wealth of information about mysticism and the unconscious

Aldous Huxley was born on 26 July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey. He began writing poetry and short stories in his early 20s, but it was his first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), which established his literary reputation. This was swiftly followed by Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928) – bright, brilliant satires in which Huxley wittily but ruthlessly passed judgement on the shortcomings of contemporary society. For most of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy and an account of his experiences there can be found in Along the Road (1925). The great novels of ideas, including his most famous work Brave New World (published in 1932, this warned against the dehumanising aspects of scientific and material 'progress') and the pacifist novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) were accompanied by a series of wise and brilliant essays, collected in volume form under titles such as Music at Night (1931) and Ends and Means (1937). In 1937, at the height of his fame, Huxley left Europe to live in California, working for a time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. As the West braced itself for war, Huxley came increasingly to believe that the key to solving the world's problems lay in changing the individual through mystical enlightenment. The exploration of the inner life through mysticism and hallucinogenic drugs was to dominate his work for the rest of his life. His beliefs found expression in both fiction (Time Must Have a Stop,1944, and Island, 1962) and non-fiction (The Perennial Philosophy, 1945; Grey Eminence, 1941; and the account of his first mescaline experience, The Doors of Perception, 1954). Huxley died in California on 22 November 1963.

A gripping biography by the author of Brave New World 
 
In 1634 Urbain Grandier, a handsome and dissolute priest of the parish of Loudun was tried, tortured and burnt at the stake. He had been found guilty of conspiring with the devil to seduce an entire convent of nuns. 
 
Grandier maintained his innocence to the end but four years after his death the nuns were still being subjected to exorcisms to free them from their demonic bondage. Huxley's vivid account of this bizarre tale of religious and sexual obsession transforms our understanding of the medieval world.

Grey Eminence

Huxley's biography of the original éminence grise, a Capuchin monk who became Cardinal Richelieu's right-hand man and a powerful policitian, whilst remaining 'a man of God'

Penetrating and vivid... This biography will rank amongst Huxley's best books.  He never wrote better; he never hit upon a more interesting theme

Grey Eminence is lucid, scholarly and thoughtful. Huxley has used all his ingenuity to explain this extraordinary character

A gripping biography by the author of Brave New World 
 
The life of Father Joseph, Cardinal Richelieu's aide, was a shocking paradox. After spending his days directing operations on the battlefield, Father Joseph would pass the night in prayer, or in composing spiritual guidance for the nuns in his care. He was an aspirant to sainthood and a practising mystic, yet his ruthless exercise of power succeeded in prolonging the unspeakable horrors of the Thirty Years' War. In his masterful biography, Huxley explores how an intensely religious man could lead such a life and how he reconciled the seemingly opposing moral systems of religion and politics.

Antic Hay

'Huxley brings extraordinary vigour and gusto to every page he writes' Spectator

Few present-day writers would dare to be so heroically encyclopaedic, such ardent gleaners of gossip and table talk as well as of the profounder reveries of literature, history, science and religion

The great uniting principles that swept mankind along in their current have lost their force, and Huxley's intellectuals find themselves in a maelstrom formed by the new forces of the time. For them, life has become boring, futile, full of ennui. So we get the 'Antic Hay', the dance of profane love, but with the wood-wild strains of Pan broken up into the hesitating rhythms demanded by the fever of modern life. Huxley has a fine sensibility and his wit and fresh vision lend Antic Hay a crystalline quality

Aldous Huxley came to literary fame in 1921 with his first novel, Crome Yellow. With the novels Antic Hay, Those Barren Leaves and Point Counter Point, Huxley quickly established a reputation for bright, brilliant satires that ruthlessly passed judgement on the shortcomings of contemporary society. In later life, exploration of the inner life through mysticism and hallucinogenic drugs dominated Huxley’s writing, including his first-person account of experiencing mescaline in The Doors of Perception. Aldous Huxley died in 1963.

WITH A FOREWORD BY DAVID LODGE 
 
When inspiration leads Theodore Gumbril to design a type of pneumatic trouser cushion to ease the discomfort of sedentary life, he decides the time has come to give up teaching and seek his fortune in the metropolis. He soon finds himself caught up in the hedonistic world of his friends Mercaptan, Lypiatt and the thoroughly civilised Myra Viveash, and his burning ambitions begin to lose their urgency. . . 
 
Wickedly funny and deliciously barbed, Antic Hay epitomises the glittering neuroticism of the twenties.

Crome Yellow

Huxley mocks the fads, foibles and spirit of his time with an unsurpassed wit and brilliance

Delightful. Crome Yellow is witty, worldly and poetic

I find it hard to keep my enthusiasm for Crome Yellow within decent bounds. It is at once irresistibly funny and shrewd in its criticisms of daily life

With a strong, delightful and admirable talent for caricature, Huxley is at his entertaining best in his grimaces at modern movements and at the ridiculous earnestness of the young

The tone of Huxley's story matches the title: it is a rich, full yellow which suggests the exhilarating glow of summer

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MALCOLM BRADBURY 
 
Denis Stone, a naive young poet, is invited to stay at Crome, a country house renowned for its gatherings of 'bright young things'. His hosts, Henry Wimbush and his exotic wife Priscilla, are joined by a party of outlandish guests whose intrigues and opinions ensure Denis's attemps to woo the young Anne Wimbush are met with every possible obstacle. 
 
First published in 1921, Crome Yellow was Aldous Huxley's much-acclaimed debut novel.

Point Counter Point

Wickedly accurate portraits of Huxley's literary contemporaries in this novel of high-society misbehaviour

Huxley's style is at once dry and rich, intellectual and sensuous, scholarly and romantic. Point Counter Point is extremely funny with passages of rich and gorgeous farce

As a piece of satire, often brilliant, sometimes wise, Point Counter Point is a monstrous exposure of a society which confuses pleasure with happiness, sensation with sensibility, mood with opinion, opinion with conviction and self with God

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVID BRADSHAW 
 
The dilettantes who frequent Lady Tantamount's society parties are determined to push forward the moral frontiers of the age. Marjorie has left her family to live with Walter; Walter is in love with the luscious but cold-hearted Lucy; Maurice deflowers young girls for the sake of entertainment, while the withdrawn writer, Philip, finds himself drawn to the dangerous political charm of Everard. As they all engage in dazzling and witty conversation, the din of the age - its ideas and idiocies - grows deafening.

And Heaven and Hell

The Doors of Perception

The profoundly wise and humane account of Huxley's famous experimentation with mescalin that has influenced writers and artists for decades.

Concise, evocative, wise and, above all, humane, The Doors of Perception is a masterpiece

There is nothing the pen of Huxley touches which it does not illuminate, and as the record of a highly civilised, brilliantly articulate man under the influence of an astonishing drug, The Doors of Perception is a tour de force

You can look at Aldous Huxley and draw parallels with the Beatles: Crome Yellow and Those Barren Leaves were his breakthrough Merseybeat books, Point Counter Point was his 'Revolver', with The Doors of Perception his full-blown Sergeant Pepper trip. Like the Beatles, Huxley had so many ideas in his head that it was natural he would want to expand and experiment. What drugs provided for them both was not escape, but reevaluation

The Doors of Perception is a poignant book, partly because it reveals the human frailties and yearnings of a very cerebral writer

Aldous Huxley was born on 26 July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey. He began writing poetry and short stories in his early 20s, but it was his first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), which established his literary reputation. This was swiftly followed by Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928) – bright, brilliant satires in which Huxley wittily but ruthlessly passed judgement on the shortcomings of contemporary society. For most of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy and an account of his experiences there can be found in Along the Road (1925). The great novels of ideas, including his most famous work Brave New World (published in 1932 this warned against the dehumanising aspects of scientific and material 'progress') and the pacifist novel Eyeless in Gaza (1936) were accompanied by a series of wise and brilliant essays, collected in volume form under titles such as Music at Night (1931) and Ends and Means (1937). In 1937, at the height of his fame, Huxley left Europe to live in California, working for a time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. As the West braced itself for war, Huxley came increasingly to believe that the key to solving the world's problems lay in changing the individual through mystical enlightenment. The exploration of the inner life through mysticism and hallucinogenic drugs was to dominate his work for the rest of his life. His beliefs found expression in both fiction (Time Must Have a Stop,1944, and Island, 1962) and non-fiction (The Perennial Philosophy, 1945; Grey Eminence, 1941; and the account of his first mescalin experience, The Doors of Perception, 1954. Huxley died in California on 22 November 1963.

Discover this profound account of Huxley's famous experimentation with mescalin that has influenced writers and artists for decades. 
 
 ‘Concise, evocative, wise and, above all, humane, The Doors of Perception is a masterpiece’ Sunday Times 
 
In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gram of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers, was transformed. Huxley described his experience with breathtaking immediacy in The Doors of Perception. 
 
In its sequel Heaven and Hell, he goes on to explore the history and nature of mysticism. Still bristling with a sense of excitement and discovery, these illuminating and influential writings remain the most fascinating account of the visionary experience ever written. 
 
 WITH A FOREWORD J.G. BALLARD

Eyeless in Gaza

Huxley's 'pacifist novel', considered by many to be one of his finest, the story of a man in crisis after a disastrous affair and the death of his best friend.

A crystal clear and a deeply moving book... Unerringly, Huxley explores the layers of memory, affection and the decline of sexual attraction, asking the unanswerable question of what you do with love after it dies.... his deepest, funniest, most marvellous of novels

Sardonically humorous, urbane and exquisite in style

The play of ideas and theories, moral, psychological and sociological, is profuse and scintillating

Eyeless in Gaza embodies Huxley's conclusions about life. Amusing, moving and brilliant, there is no doubting the sincerity and the beauty of this book

Aldous Huxley was born on 26th July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey. He began writing poetry and short stories in his early twenties, but it was his first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), which established his literary reputation. This was swiftly followed by Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928) - bright, brilliant satires in which Huxley wittily but ruthlessly passed judgement on the shortcomings of contemporary society. For most of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy and an account of his experiences there can be found in Along The Road (1925). The great novels of ideas, including his most famous work Brave New World (published in 1932 this warned against the dehumanising aspects of scientific and material 'progress') and the pacifist novel Eyeless in Gaza(1936) were accompanied by a series of wise and brilliant essays, collected in volume form as Music at Night (1931) and Ends and Means (1937). In 1937, at the height of his fame, Huxley left Europe to live in California, working for a time as a screenwriter in Hollywood. As the West braced itself for war, Huxley came increasingly to believe that the key to solving the world's problems lay in changing the individual through mystical enlightenment. The exploration of the inner life through mysticism and hallucinogenic drugs was to dominate his work for the rest of his life. His beliefs found expression in both fiction (Time Must Have a Stop, 1944 and Island, 1962) and non-fiction (The Perennial Philosophy, 1945, Grey Eminence, 1941 and the famous account of his first mescalin experience, The Doors of Perception, 1954). Huxley died in California on 22nd November 1963.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY DAVID BRADSHAW 
 
Anthony Beavis is a man inclined to recoil from life. His past is haunted by the death of his best friend Brian and by his entanglement with the cynical and manipulative Mary Amberley. Realising that his determined detachment from the world has been motivated not by intellectual honesty but by moral cowardice, Anthony attempts to find a new way to live. Eyeless in Gaza is considered by many to be Huxley's definitive work of fiction.

Vintage Minis

Psychedelics

Vintage Minis bring you the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human – from birth to death and everything in between

Imagine our joy when Vintage announced that it is publishing a collection of easily digestible books from the world’s most celebrated writers on the experiences that make us human… They look good and read well. That’s win/win in our book.

Could drugs offer a new way of seeing the world? In 1953, in the presence of an investigator, Aldous Huxley took four-tenths of a gramme of mescalin, sat down and waited to see what would happen. When he opened his eyes everything, from the flowers in a vase to the creases in his trousers, was transformed. His account of his experience, and his vision for all that psychedelics could offer to mankind, has influenced writers, artists and thinkers around the world. 
 
The unabridged text of The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley 
 
VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS. 
 
A series of short books by the world’s greatest writers on the experiences that make us human 
 
Also in the Vintage Minis series: 
Drinking by John Cheever 
Swimming by Roger Deakin 
Eating by Nigella Lawson 
Desire by Haruki Murakami

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation

A brand new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Aldous Huxley's classic dystopian novel, widely considered one of the greatest novels of all time.

Aldous Huxley (1894 – 1963) was an English writer, novelist, philosopher and a prominent member of the Huxley family. He was best known for his novels including Brave New World, set in a dystopian London, and for non-fiction books, such as The Doors of Perception, which recalls experiences when taking a psychedelic drug, and a wide-ranging output of essays. He spent the later part of his life in the U.S., living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. 
 
Huxley was a humanist, pacifist, and satirist. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the pre-eminent intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in seven different years.

A gripping BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Aldous Huxley's classic dystopian novel 
It's 2116, and Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson are token rebels in an irretrievably corrupted society where promiscuity is the norm, eugenics a respectable science, and morality turned upside down. There is no poverty, crime or sickness - but no creativity, art or culture either. Human beings are merely docile citizens: divided into castes, brainwashed and controlled by the state and dependent on the drug soma for superficial gratification. 
 
Into this sterile society comes an outsider, John - a man born into squalor and suffering, but raised on The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, a book which has shaped his entire life. When he discovers that treasured ideals such as love mean nothing in this 'brave new world', where romance is ridiculous, marriage shocking and parenthood shameful, John's world is shattered - and his reaction will show Bernard and Helmholtz what rebellion really means... 
 
Based on Aldous Huxley's 1932 masterpiece, widely considered one of the greatest novels of all time, this chilling dramatisation set in a futuristic totalitarian society stars Jonathan Coy, Justin Salinger, Milton Lopes and Anton Lesser. Running time: 2 hours 
 
"...outstanding, right from the cheery music that kicks the thing off through to all the subtle sound effects that help to set the scenes perfectly"

Island

Read and loved Brave New World? Now experience Aldous Huxley's utopia

In the whole history of world literature, no writer has been better equipped to create images of false and true utopias than Aldous Huxley. Even when he has been satirising the false, the true has always been implicit in his work. We cannot deny Island's brilliance, its learning and its honest attempt to answer the big human questions

In the current climate, the novel's warnings about religious fanaticism, the exercise of massive military power, the geopolitical importance of oil and the development of artificial insemination seem extraordinarily prophetic

One of the truly great philosophical novels

For over a hundred years the Pacific island of Pala has been the scene of a unique experiment in civilisation. Its inhabitants live in a society where western science has been brought together with Eastern philosophy to create a paradise on earth. When cynical journalist, Will Farnaby, arrives to research potential oil reserves on Pala, he quickly falls in love with the way of life on the island. Soon the need to complete his mission becomes an intolerable burden and he must make a difficult choice. 
 
In counterpoint to Brave New World and Ape and Essence, in Island Huxley gives us his vision of utopia. 
 
WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION BY DAVID BRADSHAW

Time Must Have a Stop

The novel Huxley considered to be his greatest achievement; an absorbing fusion of philosophical exploration and colourful narrative

Sebastian Barnack, a handsome English schoolboy, is on bad terms with his socialist father who disapproves of his hedonistic lifestyle. He escapes to Florence in order to learn about life. His education there, thanks to the contradictory influences of his scurrilous Uncle Eustace and a saintly bookseller, is both sacred and profane. A haunting novel from one of the twentieth century's most powerful commentators.

After Many a Summer

A millionaire seeks eternal life, whilst corrupting and neglecting the things that make life worthwhile. A shocking cautionary tale from the author of Brave New World

This is Mr. Huxley's Hollywood novel, and you might expect it to be fantastic, extravagant, crazy and preposterous. It is all that, and heaven and hell too....It is the kind of novel that he is particularly the master of, where the most extraordinary and fortuitous events are followed by contemplative little essays on the meaning of life....The story is outrageously good

A highly sensational plot that will keep astonishing you to practically the final sentence

Mr. Huxley's elegant mockery, his cruel aptness of phrase, the revelations and the ingenious surprises he springs on the reader are those of a master craftsman; Mr. Huxley is at the top of his form

Jo Stoyte is afraid of death. But Stoyte is also a millionaire, and so he pours his riches into scientific research, desperate to find the secret of immortality. This ruthless quest will enmesh everyone around him in a web of greed, seduction, murder and debasement. Written while he was living in California, this is Huxley’s response to Hollywood’s superficiality and obsession with youth, a powerful cautionary tale which employs all his customary wit and merciless insight.

The Genius and the Goddess

A elderly man remembers a long-ago love affair in this remarkable exploration of intellect, sexuality, religion and death

One of the twentieth century's greatest novelists

It is Christmas Eve, and John Rivers is thinking about the past; about his sheltered upbringing; about an extraordinary time spent as a lab assistant to the great physicist Henry Maartens; about Maartens' beautiful wife, Katy, and about a love affair which shook Rivers to the core and caused him to question everything he once revered.

Brave New World Revisited

'One of the most important books to have been published since the war' Daily Telegraph

In his 1932 classic dystopian novel, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley depicted a future society in thrall to science and regulated by sophisticated methods of social control. Nearly thirty years later in Brave New World Revisited, Huxley checked the progress of his prophecies against reality and argued that many of his fictional fantasies had grown uncomfortably close to the truth. Brave New World Revisited includes Huxley's views on overpopulation, propaganda, advertising and government control, and is an urgent and powerful appeal for the defence of individualism still alarmingly relevant today.

A fantastical look at the world in the future which made me look differently at the present

A brilliant tour de force, Brave New World may be read as a grave warning of the pitfalls that await uncontrolled scientific advance. Full of barbed wit and malice-spiked frankness. Provoking, stimulating, shocking and dazzling

Such ingenious wit, derisive logic and swiftness of expression, Huxley's resources of sardonic invention have never been more brilliantly displayed

A decade ago we smug inhabitants of the information technology age thought Huxley's socio-biological satire had called history wrong. Then along came stem-cells

Not a work for people with tender minds and weak stomachs

WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY MARGARET ATWOOD AND DAVID BRADSHAW 
 
Far in the future, the World Controllers have created the ideal society. Through clever use of genetic engineering, brainwashing and recreational sex and drugs all its members are happy consumers. Bernard Marx seems alone harbouring an ill-defined longing to break free. A visit to one of the few remaining Savage Reservations where the old, imperfect life still continues, may be the cure for his distress... 
 
Huxley's ingenious fantasy of the future sheds a blazing light on the present and is considered to be his most enduring masterpiece. 
 
**One of the BBC’s 100 Novels That Shaped Our World**

Aldous Huxley

Huxley's dystopian classic is a nightmare vision of the fate of humanity in a post-nuclear world. 
 
After a devastating global catastrophe, a group of scientists arrives in a ruined future shaped by fear, ritual and violence. Humanity has survived – but at a terrible cost, and not in any form they recognise. Ape and Essence is Aldous Huxley’s bleak, satirical vision of civilisation after collapse. Fierce, strange and provocative, it confronts the destructive impulses that persist even after the world has ended. 
 
 
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Aldous Huxley

Books by Aldous Huxley

Series by Aldous Huxley

Brief Encounters

Articles featuring Aldous Huxley

100 must-read classics, as chosen by our readers

Must-read sci-fi classics

Dystopian classics that make timely reading

What to read after The Handmaid’s Tale

Margaret Atwood on why we should all read Brave New World

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