Eyeless in Gaza

London: Chatto & Windus, 1969.

Publisher's blue cloth with the slightly rubbed, price-clipped, dust-jacket. First published in 1936 this the third re-set edition following the collected edition of 1949 (reprinted in 1955). Old owner names to the fly-leaf. VG+ copy. The title is taken from a phrase in Milton's 'Samson Agonistes'. Huxley's modernist novel centres on Anthony Beavis, a dilettante social theorist, a man inclined to recoil from life. The pleasures of the physical world disgust him and the universe of ideas is but a poor refuge. Having long lost the art of intimacy, he betrays friendships and toys with the affections of women. But with the approach of middle age, his vibe of detachment begins to sour. When it dawns on him that his withdrawal from life has been motivated not by intellectual honesty but by moral cowardice Beavis meets the remarkable Dr Miller.