Aldous Huxley was born in Surrey, England, in 1894. The Huxley family included a number of prominent scientists, writers, and public intellectuals. His father, Leonard, was a well-known educator and biographer, and his mother, Julia, was the niece of famous poet and literary critic Matthew Arnold. Huxley’s older brother, Leonard, founded the World Wildlife Fund and served as the first director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). His younger brother, Andrew, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1963. In 1911, Huxley contracted an eye disease that left him partially blind for several years and prevented him from serving in the British Army during World War I. During this time, he worked as an occasional farm laborer at Garsington Manor, the country home of Lady Ottoline Morrell, which served as inspiration for Crome Yellow. He graduated from Oxford in 1916 and worked briefly as a French teacher.

Huxley published his first volume of poetry, The Burning Wheel, in 1916; it was soon followed by three more poetry collections, which critics noted were influenced by mysticism, French Symbolism, and fin-de-siècle aestheticism. His first four published novels, including Crome Yellow (1921), were all social satires that were known for being sexually frank and were frequently banned or contested.