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The Doors of Perception [&] Heaven and Hell
HUXLEY, Aldous
The Doors of Perception [&] Heaven and Hell
London: Chatto & Windus, 1954 & 1956
8vo., 2 vols; publisher’s blue and pink cloth respectively; lettered in gilt with decorative waved borders to head and foot of spine; both in the vibrant, unclipped pictorial dustwrappers (6s. And 7s 6d. net to front flaps) designed by John Woodcock; pp. [iv], 5-62, [ii]; [viii], 9-87, [i]; both books with some tide markings to the lower edge of boards; and lightly offset to endpapers; internally clean, bright copies, with some very light spotting to the outer edges of the text block and some ink ownership markings to the ffeps of Vol I; both wrappers retaining almost all of their original vibrancy and colour; just some light creasing, rubbing, and the odd nick to the outer edges of djs; Vol II ever-so-slightly faded along the backstrip; very good copies in near-fine wrappers.
A first edition set of these infamous works by Aldous Huxley on the effects of mescalin, with both titles taken directly from William Blake’s ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’: ‘the doors of perception were cleansed’.
It was 1953 when Huxley, already famous for his bestselling novel ‘Brave New World’ began to experiment with mescaline. He had commenced an active correspondence with Humphry Fortescue Osmond, the English psychologist who is later credited with the coining of the term ‘ psychedelic’, and who advocated for the uses of these sorts of drugs in the practical treatment of mental illnesses. Intrigued by this, Huxley procured a dose, and it was his experiences under their effect while in southern California that led to the publication of ‘The Doors of Perception’. ‘Heaven and Hell’ followed just two years later, and expanded the subject areas to the effects of vitamin starvation on the medieval mind, the visionary power attained by fasting, and hypnosis. Later, Huxley would go on to advise Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert in their famous LSD tests at Harvard University in the 1950s. Huxley continued to experiment with psychedelics for the rest of his life, and was an advocate for their benefits across the fields of Art, Science and Religion.
“I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation - the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence”
HUXLEY, Aldous
The Doors of Perception [&] Heaven and Hell
London: Chatto & Windus, 1954 & 1956
8vo., 2 vols; publisher’s blue and pink cloth respectively; lettered in gilt with decorative waved borders to head and foot of spine; both in the vibrant, unclipped pictorial dustwrappers (6s. And 7s 6d. net to front flaps) designed by John Woodcock; pp. [iv], 5-62, [ii]; [viii], 9-87, [i]; both books with some tide markings to the lower edge of boards; and lightly offset to endpapers; internally clean, bright copies, with some very light spotting to the outer edges of the text block and some ink ownership markings to the ffeps of Vol I; both wrappers retaining almost all of their original vibrancy and colour; just some light creasing, rubbing, and the odd nick to the outer edges of djs; Vol II ever-so-slightly faded along the backstrip; very good copies in near-fine wrappers.
A first edition set of these infamous works by Aldous Huxley on the effects of mescalin, with both titles taken directly from William Blake’s ‘The Marriage of Heaven and Hell’: ‘the doors of perception were cleansed’.
It was 1953 when Huxley, already famous for his bestselling novel ‘Brave New World’ began to experiment with mescaline. He had commenced an active correspondence with Humphry Fortescue Osmond, the English psychologist who is later credited with the coining of the term ‘ psychedelic’, and who advocated for the uses of these sorts of drugs in the practical treatment of mental illnesses. Intrigued by this, Huxley procured a dose, and it was his experiences under their effect while in southern California that led to the publication of ‘The Doors of Perception’. ‘Heaven and Hell’ followed just two years later, and expanded the subject areas to the effects of vitamin starvation on the medieval mind, the visionary power attained by fasting, and hypnosis. Later, Huxley would go on to advise Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert in their famous LSD tests at Harvard University in the 1950s. Huxley continued to experiment with psychedelics for the rest of his life, and was an advocate for their benefits across the fields of Art, Science and Religion.
“I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation - the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence”