Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Leda
Leda
Leda
Ebook73 pages1 hour

Leda

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

()

Read preview

About this ebook

Aldous Huxley was one of the most unique intellectuals of his age, but he was also one of the greatest. While he was controversial for dabbling with mysticism, a belief in parapsychology and the supernatural, and for advocating the use of psychedelic drugs, nobody could deny his abilities. Having grown up among the Huxley family, Aldous was well-versed in everything from botany to zoology, which helped him write one of the seminal futuristic science fiction novels, Brave New World, which he claimed sprang forth from him because of his experience in "an ordered universe in a world of planless incoherence".


Brave New World is still Huxley’s best known work, and it has often drawn comparisons to the works of H.G. Wells and his friend George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. 
LanguageEnglish
PublisherKrill Press
Release dateDec 17, 2015
ISBN9781518339592
Author

Aldous Huxley

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) is the author of the classic novels Brave New World, Island, Eyeless in Gaza, and The Genius and the Goddess, as well as such critically acclaimed nonfiction works as The Perennial Philosophy and The Doors of Perception. Born in Surrey, England, and educated at Oxford, he died in Los Angeles, California.

Read more from Aldous Huxley

Related to Leda

Related ebooks

Psychological Fiction For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Leda

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings

0 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    Leda - Aldous Huxley

    LEDA

    ..................

    Aldous Huxley

    YURITA PRESS

    Thank you for reading. In the event that you appreciate this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the author.

    This book is a work of fiction; its contents are wholly imagined.

    All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

    Copyright © 2015 by Aldous Huxley

    Interior design by Pronoun

    Distribution by Pronoun

    TABLE OF CONTENTS

    FOREWORD

    LEDA

    Leda

    By

    Aldous Huxley

    Leda

    Published by Yurita Press

    New York City, NY

    First published 1920

    Copyright © Yurita Press, 2015

    All rights reserved

    Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

    About Krill Press

    Krill Press is a boutique publishing company run by people who are passionate about history’s greatest works. We strive to republish the best books ever written across every conceivable genre and making them easily and cheaply available to readers across the world. Please visit our site for more information.

    FOREWORD

    ..................

    IN 19TH CENTURY ENGLAND, FEW families were as accomplished as the Huxley family, which included prominent figures in the arts, sciences, and literature, but the most famous of them all would come of age in the early 20th century.

    Aldous Huxley was one of the most unique intellectuals of his age, but he was also one of the greatest. While he was controversial for dabbling with mysticism, a belief in parapsychology and the supernatural, and for advocating the use of psychedelic drugs, nobody could deny his abilities. Having grown up among the Huxley family, Aldous was well-versed in everything from botany to zoology, which helped him write one of the seminal futuristic science fiction novels, Brave New World, which he claimed sprang forth from him because of his experience in an ordered universe in a world of planless incoherence.

    Brave New World is still Huxley’s best known work, and it has often drawn comparisons to the works of H.G. Wells and his friend George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. The futuristic novel, which also doubled as social commentary, was full of the kind of biting satire that had already gotten Huxley hired as a social satirist and contributor to publications like Vanity Fair. In the years after World War II, Huxley’s pessimism in the current state of civilization would only grow, and he would become a more pronounced pacifist and humanist, writing at length about how the world’s goals were thwarted by its own methods for achieving them.

    LEDA

    ..................

    BROWN and bright as an agate, mountain-cool,

    Eurotas singing slips from pool to pool;

    Down rocky gullies; through the cavernous pines

    And chestnut groves; down where the terraced vines

    And gardens overhang; through valleys grey

    With olive trees, into a soundless bay

    Of the Ægean. Silent and asleep

    Lie those pools now: but where they dream most deep,

    Men sometimes see ripples of shining hair

    And the young grace of bodies pale and bare,

    Shimmering far down—the ghosts these mirrors hold

    Of all the beauty they beheld of old,

    White limbs and heavenly eyes and the hair’s river of gold,

    For once these banks were peopled: Spartan girls

    Loosed here their maiden girdles and their curls,

    And stooping o’er the level water stole

    His darling mirror from the sun through whole

    Rapturous hours of gazing.

    The first star

    Of all this milky constellation, far

    Lovelier than any nymph of wood or green,

    Was she whom Tyndarus had made his queen

    For her sheer beauty and subtly moving grace—

    Leda, the fairest of our mortal race.

    Hymen had lit his torches but one week

    About her bed (and still o’er her young cheek

    Passed rosy shadows of those thoughts that sped

    Across her mind, still

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1