Olga Yu. Antsiferova, DSc in Philology, Full Professor, Department of Foreign Literature History, St Petersburg State University, University Embankment, 7/9, 199034, St Petersburg, Russia; Russian Christian Academy for Humanities named after Fyodor Dostoevsky. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1219-0134
The study was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation No. 25-28-00584, https://rscf.ru/en/project/25- 28-00584/; Russian Christian Academy for Humanities named after Fyodor Dostoevsky. The focus of the article are main trends of the reception of Aldous Huxley’s work during his lifetime, each stage of which, in both his fiction and his scholarly journalism, invariably provoked controversy. Huxley’s concept of fiction, which gave rise to the critical concept of “novel of ideas”, has always been the subject of the fierce debates. Reviewers repeatedly criticized him for obscenity, a lack of empathy for his characters, and excessive prolificacy. Huxley’s spiritual quest for “perennial philosophy”, a religious-philosophical synthesis based on integration of the traditions of Eastern and Western was very difficult to understand for most of his contemporaries. While the beginning of his creative career was marked by undoubted critical success, in the 1950s his critical reputation sank to its lowest point, which, nevertheless, did not prevent the preservation of readerly interest.
Aldous Huxley; English literature; literary reputation; lifetime reception; reader success; concept of the novel; quest for spiritual synthesis.
10.12.2025
20.01.2026
Antsiferova, O. Yu. “Aldous Huxley’s Literary Reputation in His Lifetime Criticism”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 2(72), 2026, pp. 176–190. (In Russ.)
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