Description
Book SynopsisThis third volume of a projected six reinforces Huxley’s stature as one of the most acute and informed observers of the social and ideological trends of the years between the world wars. It contains the important collection of essays "Music at Night" as well as the majority of Huxley’s journalistic writing for the Hearst newspapers in the United States and for a variety of British periodicals such as Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine, the Evening Standard, and Time and Tide. Much of the attraction of the Hearst essays lies in their vivid period detail: references to the raucous voices of Nazi broadcasters, speeches by Roosevelt and Stalin, Soviet five-year plans, and the effects of the Great Depression combine to provide a rich context for Huxley’s increasingly active role in organized pacifism and his sense of standing on the threshold of a new era. The essays of "Music at Night" define this trend as “the New Romanticism,” a celebration of Enlightenment modernity and an excessive faith in instrumental reason and applied science. Huxley was both intrigued by and suspicious of state planning and centralized bureaucratic authority. The essays in Volume III (and the volume to follow) register his growing ambivalence about the role of technocracy and science in an era of experimentation in the concentration of executive and legislative power. At their best, Huxley’s essays stand among the finest examples of the genre in modern literature. "He was among the few writers who...played with ideas so freely, so gaily, with such virtuosity, that the responsive reader...was dazzled and excited."—Isaiah Berlin.
Trade ReviewPerusing Volume One, I was struck by the sensitivity and the unerring perception in these unknown reviews, ultimately my most enjoyable reading of the year. -- Robert Craft, conductor and writer on music * Times Literary Supplement, (Books Of The Year, Dec.) *
There is much to enjoy in these volumes...they are important as a document of his times. * Economist *
The editors...have done their job with commendable thoroughness. -- P. N. Furbank * Times Literary Supplement *
A striking mastery of English prose as well as a profusion of ideas and insights. -- Stefan Kanfer * The Wall Street Journal *
An important and admirable publishing event. * Atlantic Monthly *
He writes with an easy assurance and a command of classical and modern cross-references. -- Christopher Hitchens * Los Angeles Times *
To read all the essays in sequence is like being enrolled at the college of your dreams. * The New Yorker *
