Huxley six family members collection
Date Published: 1881 to 1989
Binding: No binding & hard cover
The Huxley family is a notable British family. Several family members have excelled in science, medicine, arts, and literature. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895), the patriarch of the family, was a zoologist, comparative anatomist, and friend of Charles Darwin. His grandsons include Aldous Huxley (1894-1963), the novelist and author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception, and his brother, Sir Julian S. Huxley, (1987-1975), a biologist, eugenicist, and the first director of UNESCO. Sir Julian’s wife was Lady Juliette Huxley (1896–1994, née Mairie Juliette Baillot), a Swiss-French sculptor and writer. Elspeth Huxley (1907-1997) was a polymath, writer, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government advisor, best known for her lyrical books The Flame Trees of Thika and The Mottled Lizard which were based on her experiences growing up in a coffee farm in Colonial Kenya. Her husband, Gervas Huxley, was a grandson of Thomas Huxley and a cousin of Aldous Huxley.
The collection contains 32 items dating from 1881 to 1989, specifically 23 letters, 2 booklets, 1 post card, 1 photo, 2 books, 1 typescript, and 1 telegram.
Thomas Henry Huxley 1 Letter
1 Letter: Autographed Letter Signed (ALS)
• ALS, 12 September 1881, “Mr T.H. Huxley will be obliged if the landlord of the Waterloo Hotel, Betws-Y-Coed will reserve a bedroom for him for Friday night the 9th Inst. He expects to arrive there about 9 pm and will be glad to have some dinner ready for him on his arrival.”
Aldous Huxley 1 Booklet and 2 Letters
1 Booklet:
• 100,000 Say No! Aldous Huxley and 'Dick' Sheppard Talk about Pacifism. London: Peace Pledge Union, 1936. Printed wrappers, remnant of rusty staples, paper residue along the spine edge, and small punctures at the back. Images of Huxley and Sheppard on the front, price one penny. Sheppard (Hugh Richard Lawrie, British pacifist and Anglican priest, the founder of the Peace Pledge Union) and Huxley discuss the origins of the Peace Pledge Union and its relationship to other peace organizations.
2 Letters:
• TLS dated 1 August 1952, to Giancarlo Camerana, Associazione Culturale Italiana, who was the creator of the Italian Cultural Association and in forty-six years of activity she had brought to Italy over 400 personalities including philosophers, scientists, writers, Nobel laureates.
Regretting that he cannot accept the invitation since he will not be in Europe between November 1952 and May 1953
• TLS from Sheppard to Mr. Dunn, 26 March 1929, re the character and passing of Will Bonbright.
Sir Julian S. Huxley, 11 Letters, Telegram, Booklet, Autographed postcard and Photo.
11 Letters:
2 TLS to Giancarlo Camerana, Associazione Culturale Italiana,
• 25 January 1951 ;
• 5 July 1952
Man.
9 TLS, and a telegram to Irma Antonetto, Associazione Culturale Italiana,
• 26 August 1952,
• 3 November 1952,
• 11 March 1953 (enclosing a typescript of his paper, “Humanisme évolutionnaire”, 2 pp.),
• 28 April 1953,
• 11 August 1953
• 11 December 1962,
re invitation to have a lecture tour in Italy, providing biographical information about himself, speaking in French, his expenses and fees, whether he will need a dinner jacket, thanking Antonetto for the lovely times that he and his wife had in Genoa, Milan, and Rome, particularly the hospitality of Count Visconti, Baron Zerilli, and Count Camerana, the publication of his lecture in the association’s Quaderni, and providing Antonetto with an Italian translation of his book.
• TLS to Dr. Herman Harvey, Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, 18 August 1964, re making a tape-recording for your programme, inquires if he would be paid a fee. • TLS to John R. Uppington, 14 January 1965, thanking Uppington for his letter and other tributes to his uncle, encloses a photo and signed extract from “We Europeans” (neither present), provides address of Aldous Huxley’s widow in Los Angeles.
• TLS to Miss Corry, 20 July 1933, that he wishes to keep the copy of Haldane's Inequality of
Autograph postcard:
• Signed to Mrs. Frederick Waller (his aunt, neé Jessie Oriana Huxley, wife of British architect and antiquarian), Gloucester, England, post-marked 13 December 1915, Rice Institute, Houston , Mass., sends Christmas wishes, can’t remember her address, has heard very little from her since the war, hopes all is well with her and her family, “took this pretty little yellow signature setting on her white nest (of poplar-seed) in Wyoming this summer.” Verso is a photo of a bird and Huxley has written “The Summer Warbler” under the photo.
Booklet:
• Holyrood: The Newdigate Poem 1908. Oxford: B.H. Blackwell; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, 1908. Huxley’s first publication. Blue wrapper, library stamp (The Univers Bibliothek Bonn) and a few other markings on the front cover. Card signed by Huxley with envelope addressed to Ricahrd C. Laade.
B&w photo:
• “Atomic Meeting”, of Huxley with Richard T. Frankesnstein (UAW CIO vice president), and actors Frederic March and Danny Kaye, 6 December 1945, Associated Press Photo.
1 Book (signed):
• The Captive Shrew and Other Poems of a Biologist. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1932. Green cloth. Signed presentation copy for Norman Notley, the baritone and singing teacher, dated Sept. 1939.
Juliette Huxley - 3 Letters
1 ALS and 2 TLS to Irma Antonetto, Associazione Culturale Italiana,
• 3 July [195?],
• 2 July 1954
• 24 October 1956,
written in French (one paragraph in English), re Aldous Huxley and whether he can come to Italy to lecture, T.S. Eliot lecturing in America and receiving a medal, Eliot seriously ill after travelling to South Africa, her husband receiving the Kalinga Prize in Paris, and her travels with her husband in the United States and at McGill University.
Elspeth Huxley - 6 Letters and 1 Book:
5 Letters: 4 Autographed Letters Signed (ALS) and 1 Typed Letter Signed (TLS):
• ALS 2pp.15 February 1968 to Mr. Jackson, Government House Msabane Swaziland. She is appreciative of a luncheon and a fellow-guest, Mr. Joseph, and says she is enthralled with Morris West [Australian author], admiring the way he gets under the skin of people of such totally different cultures and races, to ravel such a complex and convincing plot. She mentions a friend who is a poor performer, a scathing review in The Spectator, and outlines travel plans (Rhodesia). She discusses travel arrangements and two people Jackson has put her in touch with.
• ALS 2pp. 25 March 1968, Mount Nelson Hotel Cape Town
• ALS to Mr. Shaw, 7 July 1989, re charities involved with saving elephants from extinction.
• ALS 1st August, no year, to Mr. Schofield
• TLS to Mr. Tupper, 21 December 1968, answering a request for her signature on Red Rock Wilderness: “Fame indeed, I feel, in its fashion. Though heaven knows what my books would be like to read now, I never look at them. Nothing is deader than a book that has been written and forgotten about.”
• TLS to Diana Kingdom of The Book Society, 14 October [early 1960s], re a review (350 words) for The Bookman.
1 Book:
• The Flame Tress of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood. London: Chatto & Windus, 1959. First edition of the author's autobiographical work based on her early life among white settlers on her father's coffee plantation in Kenya. Laid in is an ALS addressed to Mr. Schofield, 1 August [1959?], thanking him for asking for her autograph in the hope that he’ll enjoy reading the book. Green cloth in very good dust jacket, a small hole to the bottom of the title page. Collection on consignment with LDRB.
Good. Item #8329
$1,685.00 USD
$2,317.41 CAD