In Los Angeles, Huxley wrote screenplays for film versions of fictional classics such as Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and Alice in Wonderland. He also continued writing fiction, notably Ape and Essence (1948), a futuristic fiction set in Los Angeles after a nuclear war. With Grey Eminence (1941) and The Devils of Loudon (1952), Huxley looked backward to historical events to examine what he believed to be the hypocrisy of organized religion. In addition to his fiction and screenplays, the planning and writing of biographies, essays, and other works of non-fiction occupied him constantly during these years.
Huxley's last novel, Island (1962), returns to the theme of the future he once explored so memorably in Brave New World. The later novel, in which Huxley tried to create a positive vision of the future, failed to come up to readers' expectations. Brave New World Revisited, a series of essays addressing the themes of his early novel, represents a more successful rethinking of future (and present) social challenges.
Huxley died of cancer in California on November 22, 1963. Although his novels — especially Brave New World — still enjoyed great popularity, Huxley's death received little notice in the media at the time. The nation's shock over the assassination of President John F. Kennedy overshadowed news of the writer's death.
