Eyeless in Gaza

Blurb

Eyeless in Gaza is a bestselling novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1936. The title originates from a phrase in John Milton's Samson Agonistes:
... Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him
Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves ...
The title of the book, like Milton's poem, recalls the biblical story of Samson, who was captured by the Philistines, his eyes burned out, and taken to Gaza, where he was forced to work grinding grain in a mill.
The chapters of the book are not ordered chronologically. Aldous Huxley biographer Sybille Bedford claims in her fictive memoir Jigsaw that the novel's characters Mary Amberley, a drug addict, and her daughter were partly inspired by her own experiences with her morphine-addicted mother and herself, known to Huxley because they were neighbours in the south of France.