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Jesting Pilate, The Diary of a Journey
Travels in India and Burma, Malaya, The Pacific, and America
Hardcover
Published January 1, 1930
About the author
Aldous Huxley
1,008 books14k followersAldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.
Born into the prominent Huxley family, he graduated from Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Early in his career, he published short stories and poetry and edited the literary magazine Oxford Poetry, before going on to publish travel writing, satire, and screenplays. He spent the latter part of his life in the United States, living in Los Angeles from 1937 until his death. By the end of his life, Huxley was widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of his time. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times, and was elected Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature in 1962.
Huxley was a pacifist. He grew interested in philosophical mysticism, as well as universalism, addressing these subjects in his works such as The Perennial Philosophy (1945), which illustrates commonalities between Western and Eastern mysticism, and The Doors of Perception (1954), which interprets his own psychedelic experience with mescaline. In his most famous novel Brave New World (1932) and his final novel Island (1962), he presented his visions of dystopia and utopia, respectively.
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June 1, 2026
A hundred years ago, Aldous Huxley took a round-the-world trip starting in Italy with stops in Port Said, India, Burma, Malaya, Java, China, Japan, the United States, and London. In all of these locations, the author mused about the local culture, sometimes positively, sometimes (especially in the U.S.) negatively. One interesting point he makes in this book -- Jesting Pilot -- is:
Those who like to feel that they are always right and who attach a high importance to their own opinions shoulod stay at home. When one is travelling, convictions are mislaid as easily as spectacles; but unlike spectacles, they are not easily replaced.Most of the book is taken up with Huxley's rather extensive stay in India, and these sections also constitute the most interesting material as well. The region Huxley seemed to have disliked the most was the United States, especially Los Angeles. Interestingly, this is where he ended up.
Displaying 1 of 1 review