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Huxley (Aldous and Laura) papers
LSC.2009
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Aldous and Laura Huxley papers
Creator:
Huxley, Aldous
Creator:
Huxley, Laura Archera
Identifier/Call Number: LSC.2009
Physical Description:
50.5 Linear Feet
(110 boxes, 4 cartons, and 5 oversize boxes)
Physical Description:
8 Audiovisual Carriers
(7 records, 1 open reel audiotape)
Physical Description:
10 Born-digital Carriers
(9 optical discs, 1 floppy disk)
Date (inclusive): 1925-2007
Abstract: Aldous Leonard Huxley (1894-1963) was a prolific writer of novels, essays, poetry, criticism, and screenplays. The Aldous
Huxley Papers portion of the collection consists correspondence between Aldous Huxley and publishers Harper & Row, personal
correspondence, holographic notes, literary manuscripts and personal effects. Laura Archera Huxley (1911-2007) was a musician,
author, psychological counselor and lecturer. The materials in the collection that comprise the personal papers of Laura Archer
Huxley include personal correspondence, holographic and typewritten notes, manuscripts, collected articles and clippings and
interviews. As well, there are photographs and audiovisual recordings of both Aldous Huxley and Laura Archera Huxley.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Restrictions on Use and Reproduction
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.
Provenance/Source of Acquisition
Collection partially assembled by the UCLA Library Special Collections staff by purchase and gift.
Gift of Harper & Row, 1972.
[Identification of item], Aldous and Laura Huxley papers (Collection 2009). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young
Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
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UCLA Catalog Record ID:
9917206393606533
Aldous Leonard Huxley was born on July 26, 1894 in Surrey, England; 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; 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; was a prolific writer of essays, poetry, criticism, and screenplays; received D. Litt. from University
of California in 1959; died on November 22, 1963 in California.
Laura Huxley was born on November 2, 1911 in Turin (Torino), Italy. Laura studied violin since the age of ten, and as a teenager,
continued her studies of the instrument in Berlin, Paris, and Rome. She eventually toured Europe and the United States, performing
at Carnegie Hall and further pursuing her music study at the Curtis Institute of Philadelphia.
During World War II, Laura decided to remain in the United States and live with her close friend --- sister to Ernest Hemingway's
second wife, Pauline Pfeiffer Hemingway --- Virginia Pfeiffer. Laura Huxley's study in psychotherapy, health, and nutrition
was prompted by Virginia Pfeiffer's diagnosis of cancer in 1949. Before her studies and career in well-being, psychology,
and health, Laura Huxley worked in Hollywood. Aldous Huxley and his first wife, Maria, met Laura Archera in 1948 while living
in Wrightwood, California. In 1955, Maria Huxley died of breast cancer. One year after Maria's death, Aldous and Laura were
married in Yuma, California. Together, they moved into a home in Hollywood Hills on Deronda Drive. After their house and most
of Aldous's personal manuscripts and library were burned in a fire on May 12, 1961, the couple moved in with Virginia Pfeiffer
and her two adopted children.
In 1959, before the fire, Aldous Huxley presented a series of lectures at the University of California, Santa Barbara called
"The Human Situation." In 1961, Huxley repeated a variation of "The Human Situation" in a lecture series he presented at M.I.T.
when he was the Carnegie Visiting Professor in Humanities. Huxley also spoke on "Human Potentialities" at the Esalen Institute
in Big Sur, California. In 1960, Aldous Huxley was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. Aldous Huxley wrote and published his
last novel,
Island, in 1962. He died on November 22, 1963, the same day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
In 1963, Laura published her book,
You Are Not the Target. She also offered psychological health and well-being guidance in the form of workshops and seminars to various groups and
individuals in Southern California. Laura went on to publish a personal account of her life with Aldous in a book titled
This Timeless Moment in 1969. Her later publications include
Between Heaven and Earth: Recipes for Living and Loving (1974),
Oneaday Reason to be Happy (1986) and
The Child of Your Dreams (1987), co-authored with her nephew, Piero Ferrucci. In 1977, she founded a non-profit organization called, "Our Ultimate
Investment" (OUI) which later became "Children: Our Ultimate Investment." The organization sponsored conferences on the topic
of "the nurturing of the possible human" in 1978 and 1994. Among the awards and acknowledgments given to Laura Huxley in her
life are an Honorary Doctorate in Human Services from La Sierra University and the Thomas R. Verny Award from the Association
of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health in December of 2003. Laura Huxley died of cancer on December 13, 2007 in her
Hollywood home.
The first 10 boxes of this collection consist primarily of business correspondence between Aldous Huxley and publishers Harper
& Row, personal correspondence, and literary manuscripts. Correspondents include Jacob Zeitlin, Lawrence Clark Powell, Gerald
Heard, Lewis Mumford, Hugh Trevor-Roper, and Lionel Trilling. Literary manuscripts include
The devils of Loudon and
Time must have a stop.
Boxes 11-15 include the books from Aldous Huxley's personal library. These items are catalogued in the UCLA online library
catalog.
Following the first 15 boxes, the additions to this original acquisition (added between 2009 to 2011) consist of personal
papers, handwritten notes, typed drafts of articles, essays and novels, galleys, day calendars, sketchbooks, drafts of previously
unpublished essays, collected clippings, journal articles, off-prints, magazines, personal effects such as pens, eyeglasses,
eye patches, memberships cards and a passport.
The collection contains audio-visual materials such as sound recordings in reel and cassette tape formats as well as recorded
film reels and VHS videos. The collection also contains photographs and assorted negatives.
The first level of organization of the additions has been arranged into two record groups according to their creator, either
Aldous Huxley or Laura Huxley. The series under each record group reflect the materials and intellectual content of the material
therein. The materials organized under the record group "Aldous Huxley Papers" are organized into series that are slightly
different from the series organizing the "Laura Huxley Papers," reflecting the slightly different nature of the materials
within the record group. The first 10 boxes of the collection were arranged and assigned series at an earlier time than the
additions. For this reason the series organizing these first 15 boxes do not fall within the organizational schema applied
to the additions to the collection. Therefore the correspondence in this record group "The Aldous Huxley Papers" can be found
under a few different series: 'Correspondence' (Box 1) and 'Personal: Correspondence' (Boxes 48-49). Within a series there
are often subseries categories that further organize the material. For example, under the 'Personal' series of "The Aldous
Huxley Papers" are the subseries: Correspondence, [last writings on deathbed], Family Related, Personal Effects, Recordings,
Research Related and Sketch. The subseries under the series 'Personal' in the Laura Huxley Papers section of the collection
include: Collected by, Correspondence, Early Life, Film, Personal Effects, recordings, Video Recordings and Virginia Pfeiffer.
The other series in the collection also have subseries categories, some of which are by media type such as 'Recordings,' while
other subseries are the title of a work or lecture or the name of a correspondent.
The Aldous Huxley papers are arranged in the following series:
- Correspondence (Box 1).
- Literary manuscripts and interviews (Boxes 2-4,7-9)
- Harper & Row correspondence (Boxes 5-6)
- Correspondence and holograph of children's story (Box 10)
- Novels, Essays and Articles (Boxes 16-21, 45-47, 50, 51, 56-59, 60-62, 64)
- Lectures and Speeches (Boxes 22, 23, 46, 50, 56, 91-94, 97-99, 107, 114)
- Writings About Aldous Huxley (Boxes 15, 41, 44, 46-47, 53, 64)
- Retrospectives (Boxes 94-95, 98-100)
- Writings Based on the Work of Aldous Huxley (Boxes 23-24, 47, 56)
- Interviews (Boxes 4, 91-92, 94-95, 99, 101, 111, 112)
- Personal (Boxes 41, 46, 48, 50, 55, 58, 63, 74-76, 82-86, 88-91, 97-101)
- Psychedelics (Boxes 27, 85, 98, 100)
- Contents of Grey Metal Box (Boxes 45, 80-81)
- Photographs (Boxes 65-73, 77)
- Safe Contents (Boxes 78-79)
- Music (Boxes 85, 98, 99, 106)
The Laura Huxley papers are arranged in the following series:
- Aldous Huxley Related Material (Boxes 42-44, 55-53)
- Interviews (Boxes 85, 101-102, 106, 114)
- Lectures and Speeches (Boxes 84, 99-100, 103-106, 113-115)
- Music (Boxes 106, 114)
- Novels, Essays and Other Written Works (Boxes 30, 33, 39, 51, 54, 107)
- Research / Professional / Projects (Boxes 31-32, 37, 38, 40, 52-55)
- Personal (Boxes 25-26, 34-36, 39, 55, 65, 69, 71, 75, 85-88, 111-112, 101-105, 108-110 )
- Photographs (Boxes 65, 69-72, 77)
- Psychedelics (Boxes 28-29, 52, 103, 105, 109, 115)
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Manuscripts for publication
Authors, English -- 20th century -- Archives
Huxley, Laura Archera
Harper & Row, Publishers
Huxley, Aldous, 1894-1963--Archives.