Antic Hay

Antic Hay
ISBN: 9780099458180
Publication Date: 2 September 2004

'Huxley brings extraordinary vigour and gusto to every page he writes' Spectator

When Theodore Gumbril hits upon the notion of designing a type of pneumatic trouser ('a comfort to all travellers, indispensable to first-nighters, the concert-goers' friends') to ease the discomfort of the sedentary life, he decides the time has come leave his position as a housemaster in a boys' public school and seek his fortune in the metropolis.

But post-First-World-War London seems to be gripped by a fever of hedonism. Gumbril is soon caught up in the delirious world of aesthetes extraordinaire Mercaptan, Casimir Lypiatt and the thoroughly civilised Myra Viveash, and finds his burning ambitions are beginning to lose their urgency... A contemporary commentator coined the word 'futilitarian' to describe the type of desultory, pleasure-seeking intellectual Huxley pinned so mercilessly to the literary map in Antic Hay. Wickedly funny and deliciously barbed, the novel epitomises the glittering neuroticism of its decade.

About the Author

Aldous Huxley was born on 26th July 1894 near Godalming, Surrey. He began writing poetry and short stories in his early twenties, but it was his first novel, Crome Yellow (1921), which established his literary reputation. This was swiftly followed by Antic Hay (1923), Those Barren Leaves (1925) and Point Counter Point (1928) - bright, brilliant satires in which Huxley wittily but ruthlessly passed judgement on the shortcomings of contemporary society. For most of the 1920s Huxley lived in Italy and an account of his experiences there can be found in Along the Road (1925).

The great novels of ideas, including his most famous work Brave New World (published in 1932 this warned against the dehumanising aspects of scientific and material 'progress') and the...