Elspeth Huxley: A Biography

By C.S. Nicholls

Book Overview

Elspeth Huxley, who died in 1997, is chiefly remembered for her lyrical and evocative memoir The Flame Trees of Thika (1959). Yet this was only one of the thirty books she wrote, and it took just a few months of her remarkably active life to compose.A woman of compelling personality and exceptional energy, Elspeth Huxley was not only a celebrated writer, but also a farmer, broadcaster, journalist, conservationist, political thinker, magistrate, and government adviser. She was a vivid chronicler of colonial Kenya, and became increasingly recognized as an observer and interpreter of African affairs over a period of profound change. Initially a staunch defender of the white settlers, she would later come to support moves toward African independence.After a childhood spent in East Africa and wartime Britain, Elspeth married a grandson of Thomas Huxley and cousin of Aldous Huxley, whom she knew well. Her wide circle also later included George and Joy Adamson, the Leakeys, and Peter Scott (whose biography she wrote). Whatever their subject, her books reveal the adventurousness, warmth, perception, and occasional astringency that made up her own personality; they are also notable for their acute observation and great social range, encompassing the lives of Kenya's poor white farmers, the frivolous Happy Valley set, and Africans alike.For this, the first biography of Elspeth Huxley, C. S. Nicholls has made extensive use of her papers and letters - including those to and from Elspeth's formidable mother Nellie and her hapless father Jos. Elspeth Huxley: A Biography is not merely a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary woman, but an absorbing account of an entire era of colonial and British history.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312300417
• ISBN13: 9780312300418
• Release Date: July 2003
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 482 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Interesting

With Liberia making headlines as to send or not to send that is the president's question (it only took fourteen years and three administrations to get to that point), a biography on Elspeth Huxley, known for her writings on Africa, seems timely. The book provides a fascinating glimpse of what seems like an archaic philosophy today, but only a few decades ago was acceptable. C.S. Nicholls analyzes Huxley's vast works that for the most part defend the English dominant position in much of Africa throughout the first half of the twentieth century.The biography is extremely strong when the author paints an insightful and propitious picture that enables readers to better understand bygone eras. Huxley lived for most of the century (1907-1997) and what she supported through her writings has been one of the key factors that later led to much of the devastation that the continent has faced since the 1960s and 1970s independence movements succeeded. The only flaw is that author C.S. Nicholls rationalizes Huxley's defense of white colonialism, turning the biographer into an apologist rather than being a historiographer and thereby placing Huxley in a wider social text. Still the book is well written and will keep readers interested in a proficient, but not popular defender of the crown.Harriet Klausner

An apology of Huxley's racism and colonialism

Having loved The Flame Trees of Thika (both book and PBS Masterpiece Theater series), I eagerly awaited this biography of author, conservationist, and defender of colonialist England -and for the most part it doesn't disappoint. Huxley is a difficult subject to pin down politically, as her opinions shifted with the tide of the changing times. She lived through the fall and failure of the colonial period, and her best and most loving writing comes from the era when it was in full bloom: the period around both sides of the First World War. As an old woman (she lived to age 90) in the mid 90s, she still held to some of her beliefs concerning the benefits of English rule of Africa.