Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher, and the author of nearly 50 books-novels and non-fiction works, as well as wide-ranging essays, narratives, and poems. He was a graduate of Balliol College, Oxford, with a degree in English literature. Widely acknowledged as one of the foremost intellectuals of the 20th century, he avidly explored mysticism and the cogency of universal truths; his most famous work, Brave New World, presented his dystopian vision of modern Western culture, countered by the utopian vision of his final novel, Island.