These first two volumes of a projected five, in preparation for several years, begin a major publishing venture, collecting the complete essays of one of the giants of modern English prose and of social commentary in our time. The first two volumes span the most productive period of Huxley's career. Volume I begins with his essays for Gilbert Murray's Athenaeum and his music essays for the New Westminster Gazette. Volume II continues through the 1920s and includes his controversial essays on India and the empire in "Jesting Pilate." The essays of both volumes range from nuanced assessments of...

This 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...