Elspeth huxley biography summary worksheet

In , the onset of the Depression threatened her job, and, when she married Gervas Huxley in , she was axed because of the recently instituted Marriage Bar that prohibited married women from serving in the civil service. In , Gervas took a job as the chief commissioner with the Ceylon Association. With the price of tea falling due to over-production, he was put in charge of increasing world demand.

His first assignment was a trip to Ceylon now Sri Lanka off the coast of India. Elspeth had recently been commissioned to write Lord Delamere's biography and embarked with Gervas from London, but she headed to Kenya to continue her research. Delamere, who died in , had lived for 30 years in Kenya and was one of the central figures in that country's development and government.

Huxley's two-volume biography, White Man's Country: Lord Delamere and the Making of Kenya, was published in and remains one of her most important works. Six months later, Gervas journeyed to Kenya after a side trip to South Africa and an airplane flight during which the pilot lost his way and had to crash-land in the bush. Undaunted, they continued on their scheduled return to London.

Their flight, one of the first offered by Imperial Airways, went from Nairobi to Cairo, stopping frequently for fuel and never exceeding miles per hour. They switched to a flying boat to cross the Mediterranean and then to a train in Italy; the planes of the time could not fly high enough to get over the Alps. The trip took six days, with the plane stopping at night.

This was the beginning of extensive travel for the two as Gervas was sent all over the world to begin advertising campaigns in an attempt to boost tea consumption. The couple lived out of a suitcase for the next five years. To pass the time on endless ocean voyages and to avoid playing bridge or shuffleboard, Huxley began writing mysteries. Three of them centered around the American detective Vachell and all took place in Africa.

Eberhart and other ornaments of the international crime choir. In , Huxley returned to Africa to do research for her fictional account of a Kikuyu family dealing with the onslaught of Europeans moving to Africa. To learn all she could about the Kikuyu, an indigenous people living in Kenya, she and her mother lived in a Kikuyu village on the slopes of Mt.

At one point during their several-months' stay, the inviting challenge of the mountain, at 17, the tallest in Kenya, became too much for Huxley's mother. Together with porters, mother and daughter set off to see how high they could climb to see the view. They reached snow-line at about 16, feet and, due to inadequate equipment, decided to head back.

The Kikuyu book was published in as The Red Strangers. Edith Walton in The New York Times September 10, , describes the work as "a book so richly detailed in its picture of native customs and psychology that it has, despite its author's disclaimers, almost the value of an anthropological study. The original publishers, Macmillan, who had also released Huxley's first book, White Man's Country, felt that a portion of Red Strangers, about female circumcision, was inappropriate for their readership, so they blithely rewrote it.

Huxley found the rewrite so ludicrous that she withdrew the book and offered it to Chatto and Windus. They had no problems with the novel in its original form and would remain Huxley's chief publisher. In , the Huxleys bought a 17th-century farm called Woodfolds in north Wiltshire, England, which they modernized and moved into the following year.

She resigned from this post when she learned she was pregnant and, in February , gave birth to her son Charles Grant, her only child.

Elspeth huxley biography summary worksheet

Though the Huxleys would continue to travel extensively, the farm in Wiltshire would be their permanent home for over three decades. Elspeth became involved in the small English community she had settled in and in became a justice of the peace for Wiltshire, a position she held for 31 years. During the s and s, Huxley wrote prolifically, having her fiction and nonfiction books, primarily on Africa, published almost yearly.

She was also busy writing for newspapers and magazines. Now an authority on Africa, in she became the only female member of the Monckton Advisory Commission on Central Africa, which was appointed by the British government to advise on the future of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland. In later years, Huxley lost none of the energy and enthusiasm of her youth.

She lived in Oaksey and turned her inquiring mind toward that small English village. In the s and s, her far-ranging interests led her to write books on philanthropists, immigrants in Britain, modern food production, travel in Australia and, of course, Africa, and explorers, such as Livingstone and His African Journeys and Scott of the Antarctic.

In , she published an anthology of writings about Kenya entitled Nine Faces of Kenya. They provide insights into the lives and accomplishments of various people, offering a broader perspective on their shared experiences or contributions to society. It is considered one of the most important and influential autobiographies in American literature.

This diary, written by a Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis during World War II, is a firsthand account of her life in hiding and the fears, hopes, and dreams she experienced. It has been translated into numerous languages and has been read by millions of people worldwide. The book offers insights into his philosophy of nonviolence and his approach to social and political issues.

This biography offers an in-depth look at the life and career of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, providing insights into his personality, management style, and the development of groundbreaking products that shaped the technology industry. This autobiography is the first in a series of books that chronicle the life of poet and writer Maya Angelou.

The book covers her early life, including her experiences with racism, trauma, and her journey towards self-discovery and empowerment. Home — Reading — Literature — Biographies. Texts Video icon An illustration of two cells of a film strip. Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. Audio Software icon An illustration of a 3.

Software Images icon An illustration of two photographs. Images Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape Donate Ellipses icon An illustration of text ellipses. Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape "Donate to the archive" User icon An illustration of a person's head and chest. Elspeth was educated at a whites-only school in Nairobi. 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. 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 remembered: "It was indeed a happy day for me when our future Prime Minister couldn't take clitoridectomy. 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. Although she was initially an advocate of continued colonial rule , she later called for the independence of African nations.

In the s, she served as a correspondent for the National Review magazine. Huxley wrote the foreword to Joy's autobiography The Searching Spirit. She married Gervas Huxley, the son of doctor Henry Huxley — in Huxley died on 10 January aged 89, in a nursing home at Tetbury in Gloucestershire, England. 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.