History
He wrote it for his niece, Olivia de Haulleville, who spent long periods of time with him and his wife Maria in their desert house in Llano in Antelope Valley, Mojave Desert, California. They took walks together, and Aldous and Maria would delight in telling stories to the little five-year-old girl. When Olivia and her family moved to Pearblossom, four miles from Llano, the Huxleys spent Christmas with the de Haullevilles and made excursions in the desert they loved. Aldous wrote The Crows of Pearblossom during such a Christmas holiday in 1944, mentioning in it Olivia's and her brother Siggy's neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. Yost. Fortunately the Yosts kept a copy of the story, as the original manuscript had been returned to Aldous with the request that he illustrate it. The fire that destroyed his house a few years later, and his own death in 1963, left the story nearly in oblivion for many years. By 1967, Olivia had become Mrs. Yorgo Cassapidis, living on the island of Hydra in Greece with a five year old daughter of her own, Melina.
Olivia de Haulleville is now living in the Southern California desert near Joshua Tree National Park and is presently writing her memoirs. In 2000 she published Pilgrimage to Java, An Esoteric History of Buddhism, ISBN 0-595-14861-1. Her son, Michael A. Cassapidis is a Tibetan monk in the Gelug-pa order.
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