Description
The collection contains correspondence and manuscripts by Aldous Huxley and his first wife Maria (née Nys) Huxley, photographs,
and ephemera assembled over many years by the collector and scholar Rolando Pieraccini, author of Aldous Huxley e l'Italia
(1998). Materials date from 1860-1998.
Background
Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894 in Surrey, England into a family of ruling class intellectuals who pursued
science, education, and literature; a disease of the eyes permanently weakened his vision at age 16, disrupting his plan to
enter the medical profession; BA, Balliol College, Oxford, 1916; employed by the British government during World War I; schoolmaster
at Eton College, 1917-19; staff member of Athenaeum and Westminster gazette, 1919-24. Aldous married his first wife Maria
(née Nys) in 1919. In 1937, the couple moved from England to the U.S. and settled in Hollywood, where Huxley wrote many screenplays
and novels. He published his first novel, Chrome yellow, in 1921; went on to write Point counter point (1928), Brave new world
(1932), Eyeless in Gaza (1936), and Island (1962), among others. Aldous was a prolific writer of essays, poetry, criticism,
and screenplays. Maria died in 1955, and Aldous married Laura Archera in 1956, to whom he was married until his death on November
22, 1963.
Restrictions
Property rights to the objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained
by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue
the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.