Huxley, Aldous

This program looks back at the life and work of Aldous Huxley. Best known for Brave New World, Huxley left behind a large body of work, from his early novels which helped set the mood of the Roaring Twenties, to his essay "The Doors of Perception," which became the manifesto of the 1960s drug culture. The program evaluates Huxley's legacy with the poet Stephen Spender, close friends Yehudi Menuhin and Huston Smith, the late drug guru Timothy Leary, biographers Sybille Bedford and David Bradshaw, critic John Carey, geneticist Steve Jones, Huxley's widow Laura and his son Matthew, and in extracts from archival interviews with Aldous Huxley himself. Filmed in California, where Huxley spent most of his life, and in Maryland and England, the program features numerous extracts from Huxley's major works.(50 minutes)