Though later known for his essays and novels, Aldous Huxley started his writing career as a poet. Published in 1918, The Defeat of Youth and Other Poems is his third compilation of poetry. The volume begins with "The Defeat of Youth", a sequence of twenty-two sonnets that explores irreconcilability of the ideal and the disappointing reality. Jerome Meckier called it “the century’s most successful sonnet sequence, better than Auden’s or Edna St. Vincent Millay’s.” In the rest of the volume, Huxley continues to explore themes started in The Burning Wheel, his first volume of poetry, including vision, blindness, and other contrasts...

Fascinating and brilliant at many levels, Huxley's spoof of Lady Ottoline Morrell's famous bohemian gatherings is difficult to categorize. The ironic tone and caricaturish rendering of some characters makes it partly entertaining satire, but intertwined with the irony are a very human love story and much poignant social commentary. Denis Stone (Huxley himself) is a young poet hopelessly enamored of the languid Anne Wimbush, who comes to Priscilla Wimbush's Crome estate for several weeks of intellectual and artistic escape...

Though Aldous Huxley is best known for his later novels and essays, he started his writing career as a poet. The Burning Wheel is his first work, a collection of thirty poems that pay homage in style to poets who wrote in the Romantic or the French symbolist styles. Many of the poems deal with themes of light, darkness, sight, music, art, war, and idealism vs. realism. Though the optimism in his early works waned as he became older, his characteristically optimistic and determined point of view shines through. The last poem was read collaboratively by ezwa, AlgyPug and Larry Wilson.

Though Aldous Huxley gained popularity from his novels and essays, he started his writing career as a poet. Jonah, his second compilation of poetry, is a collection of twelve poems (four of which are written in French). He published it, at the age of 23, for Christmas in 1917. He stated his intention to stop writing poetry at the end of the volume, but actually went on to publish numerous compilations after Jonah. (Mary Kay)

Though he gained recognition for his later essays and novels, Aldous Huxley started his writing career as a poet. Published in 1920, Leda is his fourth compilation of poetry. It begins with the passionate and slightly erotic poem "Leda", which recalls the love affair between Queen Leda, the mother of Helen of Troy, and her swan, Zeus in disguise. Some short poems follow. The book ends with two long sections. The first, "Beauty," is a short collection of vignettes where the author reflects on the concept of beauty through an ideal model of physical desire, Helen of Troy...

A series of six volumes of Wheels anthologies was produced by members of the Sitwell family between 1916 and 1922. The second volume, published in 1917, contains poems by the Sitwells and also Aldous Huxley, among others. - Summary by Algy Pug

The epigram to this work from Christoher Marlowe applies to the plot of this story: "My men like satyrs grazing on the lawns / Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay." The plot follows Huxley and his cohorts in a search for meaning and hope and love in post WWI London.

This is Aldous Huxley's first collection of short stories, which consists of 6 stories and a play. Characters in the play, "Happy Families", read by the following volunteers: Aston: ToddHW Aston's Dummy: James R. Hedrick Topsy: czandra Topsy's Dummy: czandra Sir Jasper: Marvin Larson Belle: Dawn Sutton Henrika: Rachel Costello Cain: Krista Zaleski Stage Direction: Krista Zaleski

A series of six volumes of Wheels anthologies was produced by members of the Sitwell family between 1916 and 1922. The fourth volume, published in 1919, contains several notable poems by the recently deceased Wilfred Owen. The other poets represented are Francisco Quevedo, Aldous Huxley, Arnold James, Iris Tree, Sherard Vines, and Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell. - Summary by Algy Pug

The Fifth Cycle of the Wheels poetry anthology was published in 1920 and contains poems by Aldous Huxley, Alan Porter, Leah McTavish Coehn, Geoffrey Cookson, William Kean Seymour, John J. Adams, Sherard Vines, and Osbert, Edith and Sacheverell Sitwell. The book was dedicated to Mrs Arnold Bennett, who is described as “poetry’s greatest interpretative artist.” - Summary by Algy Pug

Aldous Huxley is best known as a philosopher and novelist – notably as the author of Brave New World. He also wrote poetry, short stories and critical essays. Most of his work is somewhat dark and mildly sardonic, partly because he came of age just after World War I, when all of Europe was in a state of cultural, political and social confusion. His novel, Crome Yellow, is a prime example. Mortal Coils includes four short stories and a play, including one of the author’s most famous short works: "The Gioconda Smile." - Summary by Kirsten Wever

Dawson published over thirty books, the one best remembered today probably being the animal adventure story Finn the Wolfhound (1908)…. His own dog Tynagh and her son Gareth, who was described as the largest and finest specimen of his breed to date, served as the models for Tara and Finn in Finn the Wolfhound (1908). This is probably Dawson’s best-remembered and certainly his most frequently reprinted work: Finn, a champion Irish Wolfhound, is taken from England to Australia where he undergoes a series of adventures, being exhibited as a wild animal in a circus and escaping to live in the outback before eventually finding his old master and saving his life.

Stories of World War I warfare, published in 1916 in the midst of the war. (That's why names of persons and units are literally "blanked" out.) Alec John Dawson (1872 - 1951), generally known as A. J. Dawson (pseudonyms Major Dawson, Howard Kerr, Nicholas Freydon) was an English author, traveller and novelist. During World War I he attained the rank of Major, and was awarded the MBE and Croix de Guerre in recognition of his work as a military propagandist, a work the listener may want to keep in mind...

The Book of Lies, or Liber 333, is a holy book in the Western occult tradition of Thelema, consisting of 91 short chapters of poems, aphorisms, rituals, and metaphysics. This recording is of the original 1913 publication, and thus omits the further commentaries added by Crowley for subsequent additions. Those familiar with Crowley’s hermetic writings will recognize his subversive and playful style. Beneath the layers of symbolism, contradiction, and blasphemy lies a biting critique of the puritanical social, political, and religious values of the author’s generation.

Kuprin is well-known to Russian readers and has been described as one of the last exponents of Russian critical realism. He first made a career as an officer in the army, but he left this work to take on employment as varied as journalist, hunter, fisherman, actor, and circus worker. His literary fame was launched with the publication in 1905 of Poyedinok . Here are 12 short stories from Alexander Kuprin. - Summary by KevinS

Novelist and short story writer Alexandr Ivanovich Kuprin was one of the most widely read authors of his time. Nabokov called him the Russian Kipling for his stories about people who are often "neurotic and vulnerable". Many films and radio programs based on his works have been produced. These 15 short stories, typically “artful studies of abnormal states of mind”, were selected from various sources. The collection includes “Easter Day” ; “The Picture” ; “Hamlet” ; “The Last Word” ; “Dogs' Happiness” ; “A Clump of Lilacs” ; “Anathema” ; and “Tempting Providence” ...

The Betrothed (I Promessi Sposi) presents a kaleidoscope of individual stories, which are all tied together by the story of Lucia and Renzo, two young persons of humble origin that are deeply in love with one another. However, despite their great attachment, they are prevented from marrying by the cruel Don Rodrigo, who has himself cast an eye on the beautiful and pious Lucia. Don Rodrigo menaces the priest who was to perform the wedding ceremony, who then refuses to do his duty. Thus threatened and prevented from being married, the couple is separated, and the narration follows each of them on their struggle to unite again...

While Belgium is bleeding and hoping, while Poland suffers and dreams of liberation, while Serbia is waiting for redemption, there is a little country the soul of which is torn to pieces—a little country that is so remote, so remote that her ardent sighs cannot be heard.It is the country of perpetual sacrifice, the country that saw Abraham build the altar upon which he was ready to immolate his only son, the country that Moses saw from a distance, stretching in beauty and loveliness,—a land of promise never to be attained,—the country that gave the world its symbols of soul and spirit...