Author | Aldous Huxley |
---|---|
Language | English |
Genre | Philosophical novel |
Publisher | Chatto & Windus (UK) Harper & Row (USA) |
Publication date | 1939 |
Publication place | United Kingdom |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 314 p (1962 hardback edition) |
ISBN | 0-06-091063-1 (recent hardback edition) |
OCLC | 10092865 |
823/.912 19 | |
LC Class | PR6015.U9 A77 1983 |
After Many a Summer (1939) is a novel by Aldous Huxley that tells the story of a Hollywood millionaire who fears his impending death. It was published in the United States as After Many a Summer Dies the Swan. Written soon after Huxley left England and settled in California, the novel is Huxley's examination of American culture, particularly what he saw as its narcissism, superficiality, and obsession with youth. This satire also raises philosophical and social issues, some of which would later take the forefront in Huxley's final novel Island. The novel's title is taken from Tennyson's poem Tithonus, about a figure in Greek mythology to whom Aurora gave eternal life but not eternal youth. The book was awarded the 1939 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.