Crome Yellow

by Aldous Huxley

Overview

Crome Yellow is the first novel by British author Aldous Huxley, published by Chatto & Windus in 1921, followed by a U.S. edition by George H. Doran Company in 1922. Though a social satire of its time, it is still appreciated and has been adapted to different media.

Crome Yellow was written during the summer of 1921 in the Tuscan seaside resort of Forte dei Marmi and published in November of that year. In view of its episodic nature, the novel was described in The Spectator as "a Cubist Peacock". This was in recognition of the fact that it was modelled on (and publicised as in the tradition of) Thomas Love Peacock's country-house novels. There diverse types of the period are exhibited interacting with each other and holding forth on their personal intellectual conceits. There is little plot development. Indeed, H. L. Mencken questioned whether its comedy of manners could be called a novel at all but hailed with delight the author's "shrewdness, ingenuity, sophistication, impudence, waggishness and contumacy."

At the same time F. Scott Fitzgerald observed how within the novel's ambiguous form Huxley created structures and then demolished them "with something too ironic to be called satire and too scornful to be called irony." In addition, the open treatment of sexuality there appeared significant to Henry Seidel. Although "Nothing important happens...the story floats and sails upon the turbid intensity of restless sex." (wikipedia.org)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636376288
Publisher:	Bibliotech Press
Publication date:	11/11/2022
Pages:	154
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.36(d)

About the Author

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) was an English novelist and critic gifted with an acute and far-ranging intelligence, whose works are notable for their wit and pessimistic satire. He remains best known for Brave New World (1932), a model for much dystopian science fiction that followed.

Editorial Reviews

Huxley launched his career as a novelist with this 1921 effort in which a student named Denys spends his holiday in an English country house located in the small town of Crome. Denys encounters many unusual residents, including a girl who quickly steals his heart. Not one of Huxley's major efforts, this is mostly for laughs. This edition includes a new introduction by Michael Dirda. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

“Delightful. Crome Yellow is witty, worldly and poetic”—The Times

“With a strong, delightful and admirable talent for caricature, Huxley is at his entertaining best in his grimaces at modern movements and at the ridiculous earnestness of the young”—Observer

“Fine satirical writing. Crome Yellow is determinedly eccentric and unflaggingly delightful.”—Bookman

“The tone of Huxley's story matches the title: it is a rich, full yellow which suggests the exhilarating glow of summer”—Times Literary Supplement

“I find it hard to keep my enthusiasm for Crome Yellow within decent bounds. It is at once irresistibly funny and shrewd in its criticisms of daily life”—Daily Express

“Published when Huxley was only twenty-seven years old, Crome Yellow is a story distinct from Brave New World, albeit being laced with allusions that subversively seep through the cracks and provide the reader with a glimpse into a dystopia that has yet to flower. This first novel truly established his Huxley's reputation, and it is easy to see why: it’s funny, intellectual, relatable and, perhaps most importantly, distinctly unpretentious.”—Tribe“Aldous Huxley’s very funny first novel, Crome Yellow, features not just a varied smattering of invisible books and books-in-progress, but what might be called second-degree invisibles …”—The New York Times

“Acerbic wit”—The Atlantic

‘[Huxley] has an utterly ruthless habit of building up an elaborate and sometimes almost romantic structure and then blowing it down with something too ironic to be called satire and too scornful to be called irony. This is a book that mocks at mockery. This is the highest point so far attained by Anglo-Saxon sophistication … the wittiest man now writing in English.’ — F. Scott Fitzgerald

From the Publisher