After Many a Summer Dies the Swan: A Novel

by Aldous Huxley

Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.)

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A comedic novel written by Aldous Huxley. Published in 1939 under the title After Many a Summer, the novel was republished under its current title later in the same year. Written soon after Huxley left England and settled in California, the novel is Huxley's examination of American culture, particularly what he saw as its narcissism, superficiality, and obsession with youth. The title is a line from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem "Tithonus," about a figure from Greek mythology to whom Zeus gave eternal life but not eternal youth. In Huxley's novel, California millionaire Jo Stoyte learns of an English nobleman who discovered a way to vastly extend the human life span. Stoyte travels to England and finds the nobleman still alive, but he has devolved into an apelike creature. Stoyte decides to extend his life regardless of the consequences.

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