A Virgin Heart by Remy de Gourmont, translated by Aldous Leonard Huxley.
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The author had thought of qualifying this book: A Novel Without Hypocrisy; but he reflected that these words might appear unseemly, since hypocrisy is becoming more and more fashionable.
He next thought of: A Physiological Novel; but that was still worse in this...More
Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism and universalism. In his most famous...More
Aldous Leonard Huxley (26 July 1894 – 22 November 1963) was an English writer and philosopher. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism and universalism. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his vision of dystopia and utopia, respectively.
Book Summary
A Virgin Heart by Remy de Gourmont, translated by Aldous Leonard Huxley.
***
The author had thought of qualifying this book: A Novel Without Hypocrisy; but he reflected that these words might appear unseemly, since hypocrisy is becoming more and more fashionable.
He next thought of: A Physiological Novel; but that was still worse in this age of great converts, when grace from on high so opportunely purifies the petty human passions.
These two sub-titles being barred, nothing was left; he has therefore put nothing.
A novel is a novel. And it would be no more than that if the author had not attempted, by an analysis that knows no scruples, to reveal in these pages what may be called the seamy side of a 'virgin heart,' to show that innocence has its instincts, its needs, its physiological dues.
A young girl is not merely a young heart, but a young human body, all complete.
Such is the subject of this novel, which must, in spite of everything, be called 'physiological.'
- R.G.
Aldous Huxley
