The Doors of Perception.

HUXLEY, Aldous.

Item Number: 139481

New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1954.

First American edition of this classic work. Octavo, original cloth. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. 

The Doors of Perception is a philosophical essay detailing his experiences when taking mescaline. The book takes the form of Huxley's recollection of a mescaline trip that took place over the course of an afternoon in May 1953. The book takes its title from a phrase in William Blake's 1793 poem The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite." Huxley recalls the insights he experienced, which range from the "purely aesthetic" to "sacramental vision". Huxley's biographer and friend, the author Sybille Bedford, the book combined sincerity with simplicity, passion with detachment. "It reflects the heart and mind open to meet the given, ready, even longing, to accept the wonderful. The Doors is a quiet book. It is also one that postulates a goodwill – the choice once more of the nobler hypothesis. It turned out, for certain temperaments, a seductive book.” For biographer David King Dunaway, The Doors of Perception, along with The Art of Seeing, can be seen as the closest Huxley ever came to autobiographical writing. The book was the influence behind Jim Morrison's naming his band The Doors in 1965.