Among intellectuals Aldous Huxley 's reputation as a novelist flourished in the 1920s. His literary accomplishments span many genres: poetry, essays, plays, journalism, historical studies, travel works, screenplays, and short stories. Like the novels, the short stories reveal contrapuntal tension within Huxley as he searched for an authentic voice--for identity and order in this grievous, chaotic world. Reflecting post--World War I disillusionment, Huxley struggled with a thoroughgoing skepticism; indeed, in his foreword to Brave New World (1932) he calls his earlier self a "Pyrrhonic aesthete"--one who doubts everything. His early writing, therefore, explored the truth and humor in the idea "that human beings are given free will in order to choose between insanity on the one hand and lunacy on the other." His irreverent satire can be traced largely to that brilliance that distinguished his family forebears and to several traumatic experiences in his life.

Huxley was born...