After the Fireworks

"After the Fireworks is a major work and a turning point for Huxley, leading directly to Brave New World.” —Gary Giddins

In After the Fireworks, three lost classic pieces of short fiction by Aldous Huxley, author of Brave New World, are collected for the first time, with an original foreword by National Book Critics Circle Award winner Gary Giddins.

In the title novella, Rome is the stunning backdrop for a renowned novelist’s dangerous affair. “Uncle Spencer” is the “exquisite” (New Statesman) tale of an aging World War I veteran’s quest for the lost love he met in a prison during the war, and “Two or Three Graces,” “probably the thing nearest perfection of all that [Huxley] has done” (New Statesman), recounts a destructive writer’s abusive relationship with an impressionable housewife. Now brought back in print for the first time in seventy-five years, the novellas newly collected in After the Fireworks reveal Aldous Huxley at the height of his powers.

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) is the author of the classic novels Brave New World, Island, Eyeless in Gaza, and The Genius and the Goddess, as well as such critically acclaimed nonfiction works as The Perennial Philosophy and The Doors of Perception. Born in Surrey, England, and educated at Oxford, he died in Los Angeles, California.

“’After the Fireworks’ is a major work and a turning point for Huxley, leading directly to Brave New World.” — Gary Giddins

“The psychology of the two individuals is shrewdly mastered. . . . After the Fireworks displays on Huxley’s part a rare but genuine if elusive sympathy as well as a sound perception of human shortcomings.” — New York Times (on After the Fireworks)

“Brilliant. . . . I doubt if there is another living novelist as capable of taking in so much at a glance.” — The Spectator UK (on After the Fireworks)

“Two or Three Graces is probably the thing nearest perfection of all that he has done.” — New Statesman UK (on Two or Three Graces)

“It takes an artist of more than usual gifts to produce 137 quietly exquisite pages in order to lead up to such a delightfully ironical tiger-or-lady ending as that of ‘Uncle Spencer.’” — Literary Review on (Uncle Spencer)

“Aldous Huxley endures as one of the most visionary and unusual minds of the twentieth century.” — Maria Popova, Brain Pickings

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