The alliance in Huxley's work of modern ideas and vigorously rejuvenated, previously unfashionable forms of narrative has its origin in the rich intellectual heritage of his family, which could hardly be more distinguished. Leonard Huxley, his father,was teaching classics at Charterhouse when Huxley was born in July 1894. Somewhat later Leonard edited the influential Cornhill magazine, which attracted a bright constellation of contributors. With typically Victorian energy he also edited the letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and his own father, Thomas Henry Huxley, the noted orator, writer, and champion of Charles Darwin and his theories. Judith Arnold Huxley, Aldous's mother, was equally intelligent and talented. Granddaughter of Dr. Thomas Arnold of Rugby, niece of the poet Matthew Arnold, and sister of the admired, successful novelist Mrs. Humphry Ward, she was educated at Oxford and opened her own boarding school in 1902. Thus Huxley, who had two older brothers and a younger sister, was born into a family that had strong links with England's intellectual past yet had a tradition of leading the present and speculating seriously about the future.
For many children such a heritage would be an insufferable burden; for Huxley the family was a tonic, as it was for his eldest brother, Julian, who gained international recognition as a biologist.
