In compiling this anthology of verse, Huxley's aim is to re-interpret the great poetry of the past, to offer its wisdom to a modern world of 'vast and swiftly changing chaos'. From Sappho to Whitman, from Baudelaire to Donne, Huxley's eclectic and highly original selections are accompanied by his perceptive commentaries.Touching upon such subjects as Man and Nature, God, Marriage, Loneliness and Serenity, 'Texts and Pretexts' offers us not just a guide to the art of living but also a key to the motives and preoccupation's of one of this century's greatest writers and thinkers. "It is only by poets that the life of any epoch can be synthesised. Encyclopaedias and guides to knowledge cannot do it, for the good reason that they affect only the intellectual surface of a man's life. The lower layers, the core of his being, they leave untouched."Huxley's introduction to 'Texts and Pretexts' "Huxley has an abundant flow of language in combination with great intellectual curiosity. Speculative, digressive, highly inquisitive, 'Texts and Pretexts' is delightful extracts – and Huxley is an acute judge of what is good – or one can turn to his surrounding essays and be amused or charmed, according to temperament."NEW STATESMEN "It is part of Huxley's wisdom to recognise the value of the past, as well as the value of poetry. An amusing, enjoyable and original collection."SPECTATORS Witty and invigorating, 'Texts and Pretexts' is a delightful anthology. Huxley has the clear eye and keen touch of a fencer."TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT