Aldous Huxley (1884–1963) is one of the largest English prose writers of the 20th century. A notable literary event was the publication in 1921 of his lyric-satirical novel "Crome Yellow." But it was his true fame that came in 1928, with his best novel "Antic Hay," which quickly became a bestseller. Built according to the laws of musical composition, this book, densely populated with characters sharply contrasting one another, is surprisingly polyphonic—and in this sense is perhaps comparable only to Dostoevsky’s famous novels. Its genre is not so easy to define; most likely, it is a tragi-farce, where the comic is tightly interwoven with the dramatic. Passionate love, irresistible jealousy, a painful humaneness of kindness, political (and philosophical) murder, and an irreconcilable clash of worldviews.