In Dawn
and the Darkest Hour, poet and
author George Woodcock explores the famously complex
life and career of Aldous Huxley. A brilliant and
satirical novelist of ideas; a popular journalist and
essayist on scientific and political subjects; a
prophet of the future (Brave New
World); a pioneer of
psychedelic experimentation (The
Doors of Perception), Huxley
was a man plagued by excessive intellectual curiosity
and a withdrawn melancholic nature. In the dramatic
range of his characters and the encyclopedic quality
of his thought, Huxley expressed some of the most
interesting and disturbing commentary about the
condition of human beings and their relationship to
society.
As
Woodcock traced the progress of Huxley's works, he
recognized attempts to bring about a synthesis of
knowledge "that would give total meaning to
existence." In this striking and encompassing
critical biography, Woodcock persuasively asks us to
reconsider Huxley's works as the stages of "a
spiritual pilgrimage," as he demonstrates that
Huxley's entire remarkable oeuvre must be taken as a
whole, as a unified "movement out of darkness
toward light."
It is
a fascinating journey that provides a window into
Huxley's life and character, that shows an
intellectual continually striving for
knowledge--intuitive, scientific and otherwise--and
as such, is certain to renew interest in one of the
most the most important and influential minds of the
twentieth century.
Table of Contents
GEORGE WOODCOCK
(1912-1995)--award-winning poet,
author, essayist and widely known as a literary
journalist and historian--published more than 90
titles on history, biography, philosophy, poetry and
literary criticism. Black Rose Books is particularly
proud to have worked with Woodcock over the years as
he edited and introduced the Collected Works of Peter
Kropotkin.
295
pages, 6x9, bibliography, index
Paperback ISBN: 1-55164-284-0 $24.99
Hardcover ISBN: 1-55164-285-9 $53.99
Biography &
Autobiography
May
2006
