Elspeth huxley a biography book list

English writer, journalist, magistrate, environmentalist and adviser

Elspeth Huxley CBE
Born	Elspeth Grant ()23 July London[1]
Died	10 January () (aged&#;89) Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England
Occupation	Author, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government adviser
Nationality	British
Alma&#;mater	Reading University, Cornell University
Subject	Settler life in British Kenya
Notable works	The Flame Trees of Thika, The Mottled Lizard
Spouse	Gervas Huxley
Relatives	Huxley family

Elspeth Joscelin HuxleyCBE (née Grant; 23 July &#;– 10 January )^[1] was an English writer, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government adviser.^[2] She wrote over 40 books, including her best-known lyrical books, The Flame Trees of Thika and The Mottled Lizard, based on her youth in a coffee farm in British Kenya.

Her husband, Gervas Huxley, was a grandson of Thomas Henry Huxley and a cousin of Aldous Huxley.^[3]

Early life and education

See also: Huxley family

Nellie and Major Josceline Grant, Elspeth's parents, arrived in Thika in what was then British East Africa in , to start a life as coffee farmers in colonial Kenya.

Elspeth, aged six, arrived in December , complete with governess and maid.^[4] Her upbringing was unconventional; she was "almost treated as a parcel, being passed from hand to hand".^[4] Huxley's book The Flame Trees of Thika explores how unprepared for rustic life the early British settlers really were.

It was adapted into a television miniseries in Elspeth was educated at a whites-only school in Nairobi.

She left Africa in , earning a degree in agriculture at Reading University in England and studying at Cornell University in upstate New York.^[2] She returned to Africa periodically.

Career

Huxley was appointed Assistant Press Officer to the Empire Marketing Board in She resigned her post in and travelled widely.

Huxley started writing soon after her marriage; her first book, White Man's Country: Lord Delamere and the making of Kenya about the famous white settler, was published in

Huxley's book Red Strangers describes life among the Kikuyu of Kenya around the time of the arrival of the first European settlers.

Elspeth huxley a biography book She became a researcher for the BBC, and then was Joint Editor and subsequently sole Editor of the Dictionary of National Biography. for twenty years. Her other books include The Swahili Coast; David Livingstone; History of St Antony's College, Oxford ; Elspeth Huxley:a Biography; and A Kenya Childhood. She lives in Oxford.

The manuscript was sent first to the publisher Macmillan, but Harold Macmillan, then working for the family firm, agreed to publish it only with considerable cuts, including a graphic description of female circumcision. Huxley refused, and the book was published by Chatto & Windus. Huxley remembered: "It was indeed a happy day for me when our future Prime Minister couldn't take clitoridectomy."^[4] The book was republished by Penguin Books in and again by Penguin Classics in ; Richard Dawkins played an important role in getting the book republished, and wrote a preface to the new edition.

Her final tally of 42^[4] books included the ten works of fiction and 29 non-fiction books, as well as thousands of pamphlets and articles.^[5]

During the Second World War, Huxley was a broadcaster for the BBC.^[4]

In , Huxley was appointed an independent member of the Advisory Commission for the Review of the Constitution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (the Monckton Commission).

Although she was initially an advocate of continued colonial rule, she later called for the independence of African nations.^[3]

In the s, she served as a correspondent for the National Review magazine.

Huxley was a friend of Joy Adamson,^[3] the author of Born Free, and is mentioned in the biography of Joy and George Adamson entitled The Great Safari.

Elspeth huxley a biography book series For this, the first biography of Elspeth Huxley, C. S. Nicholls has made extensive use of her papers and lettersincluding those to and from Elspeth’s formidable mother Nellie and her hapless father Jos. Elspeth A Biography is not merely a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary woman, but an absorbing account of an entire era of colonial.

Huxley wrote the foreword to Joy's autobiography The Searching Spirit.

Personal life

She married Gervas Huxley, the son of doctor Henry Huxley (–) in ^[6] They had one son, Charles, who was born in February

Death and legacy

Huxley died on 10 January aged 89, in a nursing home at Tetbury in Gloucestershire, England.^[2]

A collection of twelve boxes of photographs, prints, negatives, contact prints and slides is held at Bristol Archives in the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection.

Most of the photographs were taken by Huxley, with the rest collected by her. The collection covers Huxley's whole career () and subject matter includes Kenyan safari landscapes and local people (specifically the Kikuyu people), the Mau Mau uprising, white settlers, Edwardian Mombasa, and a transcript of an oral history interview taken by the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum (Ref.

/).^[7] Other collections related to Huxley can be found at the Bodleian Library and Cambridge University Library Department of Manuscripts and University Archives.^[8]

Christine S. Nicholls wrote Elspeth Huxley: A Biography, published by Harper Collins in

Honours

Works

Fiction

• Murder at Government House ()
• Murder on Safari ()
• Death of an Aryan (U.S.:The African Poison Murders) ()
• Red Strangers () ISBN&#;
• The Walled City ()
• A Thing to Love ()
• The Red Rock Wilderness ()
• The Merry Hippo (U.S.: The Incident at the Merry Hippo) ()
• A Man from Nowhere ()
• The Prince Buys the Manor ()

Non-fiction

• White Man's Country: Lord Delamere and the Making of Kenya ()
• EAST AFRICA ()
• Atlantic Ordeal: The Story of Mary Cornish ()
• African Dilemmas ()
• Settlers of Kenya ()
• The Sorcerer's Apprentice: A Journey Through Africa ()
• I Don't Mind If I Do ()
• Four Guineas: A Journey Through West Africa () - contains facts about slavery in West Africa.
• No Easy Way: A History of the Kenyan Farmers' Association and UNGA Limited ()
• The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood ()
• A New Earth: An Experiment in Colonialism ()
• The Mottled Lizard (U.S.: On the Edge of the Rift: Memories of Kenya) ()
• Back Street New Worlds: A Look at Immigrants in Britain ()
• With Forks and Hope: An African Notebook ()
• Brave New Victuals: An Inquiry into Modern Food Production ()
• Their Shining Eldorado: A Journey Through Australia ()
• Love among the Daughters ()
• The Challenge of Africa ()
• The Kingsleys: A Biographical Anthology ()
• Livingstone and His African Journeys ()
• Florence Nightingale ()
• Gallipot Eyes: A Wiltshire Diary ()
• Scott of the Antarctic ()
• Nellie: Letters from Africa ()
• Whipsnade: Captive Breeding for Survival ()
• Last Days in Eden aka De Laatsten in de Hof van Eden () with Hugo van Lawick
• Out in the Midday Sun: My Kenya ()
• Nine Faces of Kenya: Portrait of a Nation ()
• Peter Scott: Painter and Naturalist ()

See also

References

Bibliography

• Giffuni, Cathe. "A Bibliography of the Mystery Writings of Elspeth Huxley," Clues: Volume 12 No.

  2 Fall/Winter , pp.&#;45–

External links