As a fan of Brave New World, I was excited to find UCLA Library’s collection of the Aldous Huxley Papers, which chronicles the influential author’s life through audio recordings, digitized images, videos, and writings.
Perusing through the collection, I noticed there is a wealth of photographs and audio clips from Huxley’s second wife, Laura Huxley. Given the time and resources, it would be interesting to piece together their relationship, and how one influenced the other’s intellectual stances and ideas. They are often pictured as a pair–undoubtedly their minds worked together as well to change, build, and mold their ideas.
While Aldous Huxley’s name and recognition eclipses his wife’s, her lectures and philosophical musings prove her intellectual prowess as well. Although there is no way to filter the audio clips by date on the archive, it would be interesting to chart the progression and style of Laura’s conversations, ideas, and seminars and compare them to Aldous’. Finding ideas that evolved in both of their minds, whether simultaneously or staggered, could reveal the nature of the intellectual back-and-forth of the couple. Tracing certain themes like drug use, spirituality, or consumerism, from Aldous’ Brave New World, and identifying them in Laura’s works may provide interesting insights as well. Did they agree? Did they disagree? Did they work together? Did they build off one another? All these questions may be answered by following the couple’s discourses, conversations, and publications.
I do appreciate how the collection was able to compile photographs from Aldous as a child, to Laura as a young adult, to the pair as an elderly couple. While undoubtedly an incomplete look into their rich lives, it is fascinating to look through these images and imagine what decisions, motivations, and ideas led to each photograph. However, the archive lacks the basic biographical information–the context–to fully craft a narrative about Laura and Aldous’ relationship. While dates and photographs may provide clues into the pair, further details about their lives, publication and speaking history, professional partnerships, and more can provide a more complete picture of their lives.
Thankfully, other online resources can remedy this issue. UCLA’s collection provides a very personal and intimate look into Laura and Aldous’ lives. More general resources like scholarly publications, encyclopedias, news archives, and online biographies can complement this archive as the basis for more detailed narratives.