Box 1

Scope and Contents These letters concern Huxley’s novel Island are addressed to L. Rust Hills, who was the fiction editor at Esquire magazine from 1956 until 1963. One letter, five pages, explains how Huxley’s house had recently been destroyed by fire. The letter also contains a summary of the novel’s plot and insights into the philosophies behind it. The other letter, a one-page note on blue air-mail paper, encourages L. Rust Hills to contact Mr. Cass Canfield at Harper Brothers for a manuscript of the novel....

Scope and Contents In this letter, Huxley answers a request for information about the clinical availability of hallucinogenic drugs for experimentation. The drugs include mescaline, LSD-25, and psilocybin, and the letters lists the pharmaceutical companies that were producing them at the time. The letter closes with a note about his own experimentation: "My own acquaintance with mescaline and LSD-25 has been mediated by research workers here and at Harvard." (Description provided by Bromer Booksellers.)