Elspeth's Fans (6)

Elspeth Huxley

Author profile

born

July 23, 1907 in London, The United Kingdom

died

January 10, 1997

genre

Literature & Fiction, Biographies & Memoirs, Nonfiction

About this author

edit data

Elspeth Joscelin Huxley CBE was a polymath, writer, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government advisor. She wrote 30 books; but she is best known for her lyrical books The Flame Trees of Thika and The Mottled Lizard which were based on her experiences growing up in a coffee farm in Colonial Kenya.

Nellie and Major Josceline Grant, Elspeth Grant's parents, arrived in Thika in what was then British East Africa in 1912, when she was 5 years old, to start a life as coffee farmers and colonial settlers. Flame Trees... explores how unprepared for rustic life the early British settlers really were. Elspeth was educated at a whites only school in Nairobi.

She left Africa in 1925, earning a degree in agriculture at...more Elspeth Joscelin Huxley CBE was a polymath, writer, journalist, broadcaster, magistrate, environmentalist, farmer, and government advisor. She wrote 30 books; but she is best known for her lyrical books The Flame Trees of Thika and The Mottled Lizard which were based on her experiences growing up in a coffee farm in Colonial Kenya.

Nellie and Major Josceline Grant, Elspeth Grant's parents, arrived in Thika in what was then British East Africa in 1912, when she was 5 years old, to start a life as coffee farmers and colonial settlers. Flame Trees... explores how unprepared for rustic life the early British settlers really were. Elspeth was educated at a whites only school in Nairobi.

She left Africa in 1925, earning a degree in agriculture at Reading University in England and studying at Cornell University in upstate New York. Elspeth returned to Africa periodically, becoming the Assistant Press Officer to the Empire Marketing Board in 1929. She married Gervas Huxley, a cousin of Aldous Huxley in 1931. They had one son, Charles, who was born in February 1944. She resigned her post in 1932 and traveled widely. She was appointed an independent member of the Advisory Commission for the Review of the Constitution of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland (the Monckton Commission). An advocate of colonialism early in life, she later called for independence for African countries. In the 1960s, she served as a correspondent for the National Review magazine.

Most of Elspeth Huxley's writing reflects on her experiences growing up in Kenya and her continued interest in African development. Her output includes both novels and non-fiction: autobiography, travel writing, political exposition, biography, and journalism, produced throughout the latter half of the twentieth century—her book-publishing career alone spanned more than sixty years. Sympathising from the beginning with the white settlers and increasingly with the black Africans, with a professional background in agriculture as well as journalism, she became a skilled interpreter of Africa to the world outside, even while remembering that "no person of one race and culture can truly interpret events from the angle of individuals" who belong to a "different race and culture." This has not exempted her from later strong critique of her racial attitudes: attitudes which were normal, nearly inescapable, for her generation, her race, and her colonial identity.
As a professional she prided herself on being able to turn her pen to anything. Her polemical writing on environmental issues, for instance, deserves to be better known.(less)

combine editions
Books by Elspeth Huxley

Average rating: 4.01 · 1,282 ratings · 154 reviews · 41 distinct works

	The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood 4.08 avg rating — 1,012 ratings — published 1959 — 13 editions	My rating:
	The Mottled Lizard 3.96 avg rating — 84 ratings — published 1962 — 4 editions	My rating:
	Out in the Midday Sun 3.86 avg rating — 37 ratings — published 1985 — 6 editions	My rating:
	The African Poison Murders 3.31 avg rating — 32 ratings — published 1976 — 8 editions	My rating:
	Murder on Safari 3.54 avg rating — 28 ratings — published 1982 — 7 editions	My rating:
	Red Strangers by Elspeth Huxley, Richard Dawkins (Goodreads Author) (Introduction) 3.83 avg rating — 24 ratings — published 2000 — 2 editions	My rating:
	Murder at Government House 3.44 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 1987 — 6 editions	My rating:
	Scott of the Antarctic 3.75 avg rating — 12 ratings — 4 editions	My rating:
	Nellie: Letters From Africa 4.40 avg rating — 5 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:
	Nine Faces of Kenya 3.60 avg rating — 5 ratings — 6 editions	My rating:

More books by Elspeth Huxley…

Quotes by Elspeth Huxley

“this was a moment of magic revealing to us all, for a few moments, a hidden world of grace and wonder beyond the one of which our eyes told us, a world that no words could delineate, as insubstanttial as a cloud, as iridescent as a dragon-fly and as innocent as the heart of a rose.”
― Elspeth Huxley, The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood

tags: magic

5 people liked it

“...that's the way to tell a true story from a made-up one. A made-up story always has a neat and tidy end. But true stories don't end, at least until their heroes and heroines die, and not then really because the things they did and didn't do, sometimes live on.”
― Elspeth Huxley, The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood

tags: insight

2 people liked it

“What sorts of sin?"

Any sort. When other people commit them, you are startled, but when you commit them yourself, they seem absolutely natural.”
― Elspeth Huxley, The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood

tags: sins

2 people liked it

See all Elspeth Huxley's quotes »

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
North Liberty Rea...: Sonja's 2010 Challenges & Read Books	133	40	Jan 02, 2011 03:25pm
A 2012 Challenge:...: Kristen's list	13	50	Oct 30, 2011 08:50am
Nothing but Readi...: Log For Keeping Track of Authors From Other Countries	16	172	Dec 02, 2011 05:32pm
Around the World ...: Kenya	5	54	Feb 27, 2012 04:50am
Bookish: W12 - Completed Tasks	263	64	Apr 30, 2012 09:09pm
The Seasonal Read...: Spring Challenge 2012: Completed Tasks -DO NOT DELETE ANY POSTS IN THIS TOPIC	2344	416	4 hours, 21 min ago

More…