The essays on Aldous Huxley collected here have been arranged by their author in such a way that they approximate a book on Huxley as a modern satirical novelist of ideas. In this capacity, Huxley assessed the intellectual condition of his era, always excoriating folly but never losing sight of human potentialities, especially his own. Huxley's ingrained skepticism persisted into his later fictions, even after his conception of the nature of things improved. The amused and highly amusing Pyrrhonic aesthete turned into a Swiftian Prospero. Detached, yet totally committed to bettering the human condition, Huxley epitomized the dedicated craftsman. This lifelong aesthetician, always a philosopher, continues to command attention as thinker, critic, and artist--both satirist and sage. "Jerome Meckier" is professor emeritus of English at the University of Kentucky. He is the author of several books, particularly on Huxley and Dickens, and co-editor of "Aldous Huxley Annual.

".