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Was Ma Hump to blame? subscriber-only content

John Sutherland

  • Aldous Huxley: An English Intellectual by Nicholas Murray
  • The Cat's Meow directed by Peter Bogdanovich (2002)

Twentieth-century Huxleys have received less biography than one might have expected. Nicholas Murray usefully fills a gap between Sybille Bedford’s thirty-year-old life of Aldous and the awaited definitive biography by David Bradshaw. With the passing of time, Murray can tell us things prohibited to his predecessor by discretion and the libel laws. At the same time, like Murray’s other biographies, this one holds the central ground of its subject very ably and maintains a respectful but clear-sighted perspective. No blackwash, no hagiography, no wild critical assessments.

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John Sutherland’s Life of Stephen Spender was published in May 2004. Formerly of University College London, he teaches at Caltech in Pasadena.

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