Uncollected Stories

This chapter focuses on Huxley’s uncollected short fiction, which appeared only in magazines during his lifetime and which James Sexton republished in “Consider the Lilies” and Other Short Fiction (2010). The chapter analyzes the following short stories: two “Imaginary Conversations,” “Good and Old-Fashioned,” “Over the Telephone,” “Under Compulsion,” “Nine A.M.,” “Visiting Stranger,” “Time’s Revenges,” “Consider the Lilies,” and “Voices.” Apart from highlighting dominant themes in Huxley’s short fiction, the interpretations of these stories point out Huxley’s complex use of self-irony and experiment with the short story’s structure on a different level than in the official collections. The analyses also show that Huxley changed his mind about the coexistence of sexuality and religious belief. Finally, this chapter links the stories from the 1950s to Huxley’s understanding of mysticism expounded in The Perennial Philosophy and The Doors of Perception.