Happy birthday, Aldous Huxley

It is the birthday of English writer Aldous Huxley (1894), whose sci-fi novel, Brave New World (1932), anticipated the loss of individual identity in a mass production world. It is considered among the best English-language novels of the 20th century. Huxley moved to Hollywood in 1937, and wrote the screenplay for MGM’s Madame Curie. He also contributed to 20th Century Fox’s 1943 production of Jane Eyre but filmmaking’s frenetic pace didn’t suit him and he returned to writing for print. However, he continued to live in Hollywood until his death in 1963. He became a friend of Swami Prabhavananda and immersed in spiritualism and psychedelic drugs. He died on the same day as C.S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy. Writer Peter Kreeft’s novel Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley (1982), features a conversation between the three men about Jesus.

Happy birthday, Thomas Huxley

It is the birthday of English biologist Thomas Huxley (1825), who became a well-known advocate of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, earning him the nickname Darwin's Bulldog. He was self-trained and did early study on invertebrates, contributing to the wider understanding of relationships between various groups. Later, he studied vertebrates, including humans and apes. His study of contemporary birds and small dinosaurs led him to the theory that the birds evolved from dinosaurs. He advocated energetically for scientific education. Famously he debated with Anglican Bishop Samuel Wilberforce about humans being descended from apes. Other scientists also participated in the debate, too, but the Wilberforce-Huxley exchange was said to be the most heated. Huxley's grandson was author Aldous Huxley.

Michael Arlen wrote of 1920s England

Time cover featuring Michael Arlen

It is the birthday of writer Michael Arlen (1895), who once was the toast of literary circles England and America, the subject of a cover story in Time magazine in 1927. He was part of London's modernist literary circles and a friend of Aldous Huxley, Somerset Maugham, Ernest Hemingway, and D.H. Lawrence, among others. Lawrence's character, the society playwright Michaelis in Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928), was based on Arlen.

Arlen is best remembered for his novels that captured the wild abandon of the Roaring Twenties in England, especially The Green Hat (1924). It is a tapestry of nightclubs, parties and the pursuit of pleasure in London and Paris, whose heroine cultivates a reputation of recklessness. On their wedding night, her husband leaps from their bedroom window to his death. In the end, the heroine is killed when her yellow Spanish-Swiss luxury car crashes into a huge tree. Her rakish green hat floats away above the flames.

Arlen himself developed a reputation as something of a dandy, driving around London in a luxurious yellow Rolls Royce. He was an impeccable dresser and an immaculately mannered man with the practiced air of a born aristocrat but with a slight hint of foreignness. He fueled a sense of adventure and intrigue, especially among women, describing himself as "every other inch a gentleman."

He was Armenian by birth, born in Bulgaria. He father was a successful merchant and importer who moved the family to England to escape the Turkish persecutions of Armenians. Arlen's birth name was Dikran Kouyoumdjian. He became a medical student at the University of Edinburgh, though his family wanted him to attend Oxford University. it was a time spent in the study of metaphysics, theosophy, and elementary medicine. it was also a time spent consumed in fecklessness and beer. Arlen remained at the university only a few months before he moved to London and decided to pursue a career in writing. His deeply disappointed family disowned him.

He wrote under his birth name for awhile, producing essays for London-based Ararat: A Searchlight on Armenia. Then he wrote for a British weekly, The New Age. He began using Michael Arlen as a pen name and in 1922 became a naturalized British citizen and adopted his pen name as his real name.

Arlen also wrote gothic horror stories and dabbled in crime fiction with the creation of the gentleman detective Gay Stanhope Falcon in a short story Gay Falcon (1940). George Sanders starred in a series of mystery films based on the character.

During World War II, Arlen served as the Civil Defence Public Relations Officer for the East Midlands but when his loyalty to England was questioned he resigned and moved to America. He settled in New York in 1946 and lived there until his death 10 years later. His son, Michael J. Arlen, was formerly the television critic for The New Yorker magazine and won the National Book Award for his book Passages to Ararat (1975).

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World

Aldous Huxley

It is the birthday of English writer Aldous Huxley (1894), whose science fiction novel Brave New World (1932) is considered among the best English-language novels of the 20th century.

The book predicted the loss of individual identity in a world of mass production. Huxley wrote it partly as a parody of H.G. Wells' A Modern Utopia (1905) and his Men Like Gods (1923), books that presented an upbeat vision of the future. Huxley took a dim view of what was to come. When it was published, Brave New World was widely panned by critics but has since come into favor in literary circles.

Huxley came from a family of overachievers. His father was an educator and writer. His grandfather was a prominent biologist and such a staunch advocate of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that he earned the appellation "Darwin's Bulldog." His brother and half brother were also biologists.

Huxley first trained in his father's botanical lab and was taught by his mother until she died. Then he went to Eton College and later Oxford. He was exempted from military duty during World War I because of an illness that left him mostly blind, though in later years he recovered most of his eyesight.

He taught French at Eton for a year and proved to be a terrible teacher, unable to maintain discipline in his classes. Among his students was Eric Blair, who later became George Orwell. He eventually started writing and wrote several novels and many magazine articles. He was a regular contributor to Vanity Fair.

Huxley moved to Hollywood in 1937 and lived there until his death in 1963, though he lived for a brief time in Taos, New Mexico. He wrote Ends and Means (1937), a collection of essays on ethics, nationalism, religion, and war. He was a vocal pacifist.

 He tried writing for the movies, completing a screenplay for Madame Curie for MGM and contributing to the studio's 1940 version of Pride and Prejudice. He also worked on the 1943 production of Jane Eyre for 20th Century Fox. But his leisurely style didn't fit energetic Hollywood.

He later became interested in spiritualism and psychedelic drugs. He became associated with Swami Prabhavananda in Hollywood and became active with the Vedanta Society of Southern California. He wrote extensively for the organization.

Huxley died on the same day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Author C.S. Lewis also died that day. Christian theology writer Peter Kreeft was inspired by those events to write the novel Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley (1982), in which the three men discuss Jesus from different points of view.

Brave New World was adapted as a TV movie in 1998.

Thomas Huxley, early evolutionist

Thomas Huxley

It is the birthday of English biologist Thomas Huxley (1825), one of the most vociferous advocates of the theory of evolution and the premier advocate of science in 19th century Britain. He was largely self-educated but rose to become a prominent leader in British zoology. His Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863) was the first book devoted to human evolution. It makes the case that man and apes came from a common ancestor. It was published four years after Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species but Darwin was careful to avoid dealing with human evolution in that book. (Darwin dealt with the subject in The Descent of Man, published in 1871.) Much of the material in Huxley's book had been published in his scientific papers and distributed to a very selected audience. His book marked the first time such theories had received the attention of a wider educated public. Huxley compares adult human anatomy with that of apes. He makes the case that humans should be considered primates. Author Aldous Huxley was Thomas' grandson.