Blavatsky and the Masters of Wisdom as having several flaws, some due to the fact that it was the first, tentative effort, to bring to the West a certain truths. Impact of the workĭespite the important impact this book had at the time, it was regarded by Mme. I had been printed off, upon the discovry that book entitled The Veil of Isis existed already. This was the original title of Isis Unveiled, changed to this latter after Vol. However, an editorial footnote to a letter by Madame Blavatsky discussed the change to the final title: Initially the title was to be The Veil of Isis. The first copy off the Press was secured by James Robinson, a lawyer, and taken to the newspaper for advance notice.Īs far as it is known, the original manuscript was destroyed. This original edition had a red binding with a symbolic figure of Isis in gold on the spine. The first printing consisted of 1,000 copies that were sold within ten days. Isis Unveiled was published on September 29, 1877. Īdvertisement from New York Tribune, Saturday, September 29, 1877. Īntiquarian bookseller Charles Sotheran, another of the founding members of the Theosophical Society, provided assistance in finding quotations and in locating books. She herself never took any credit for what she wrote, but always insisted that she was simply the amanuensis. Olcott, who was longest associated with her intimately, who followed her by day while she wrote Isis Unveiled, and much of her other writing, can testify that she wrote automatically or clairvoyantly. Witnesses speculated that she was engaged in automatic writing, or clairvoyantly saw the words in the astral plane.īut quite aside from any evidence during her visit at Ithaca, many very reliable witnesses have repeatedly testified to her writing without the books before her or within her grasp. She wrote of very complex and abstract concepts, quoting many sources accurately, but rarely referring to any book in the process. Madame Blavatsky's mode of writing was unconventional. Alexander Wilder's small booklet: New Platonism and Alchemy, Albany, N.Y., 1869.
"Many statements by HPB, particularly in Isis Unveiled, the Key and the Glossary are taken from Dr. I have never made a secret of it, and every one of my numerous acquaintances in New York knew it." Wilder's express wish that his name should not appear except in footnotes. It is he who made the excellent Index, who corrected the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew words, suggested quotations and wrote the greater part of the Introduction 'Before the Veil.' If this was not acknowledged in the work, the fault is not mine, but because it was Dr. Next to Colonel Olcott, it is Professor Wilder who did the most for me. When the work was ready, we submitted it to Professor Alexander Wilder, the well-known scholar and Platonist of New York, who after reading the matter, recommended it to Mr. His sister Isabelle Olcott Mitchell and John Henry Judge, brother of William Quan Judge helped prepare the manuscript for publication.Īfter HPB finished the text, she involved Alexander Wilder. Blavatsky wrote, and then reworked it with the assistance of Colonel Olcott. On one occasion she asked him for a Greek word on some text in the New Testament, and when my father said he could not remember it but would look it up for her at once, she said to him, half irritated and half joking: "You school-boy! Why, don't you know it?" My father got the Greek for her, and she went on with her writing. She had no books to consult my father's very extensive library was almost wholly on English literature, Early English, Anglo-Saxon, English poetry, and classic literature, and she rarely consulted him about anything. Here she started Isis Unveiled, writing about twenty-five closely written foolscap pages a day. She spent her time at her desk, writing, writing, writing most of the day and way into the night, carrying on a huge correspondence by long letters. Hiram Corson in Ithaca, New York for about three weeks. Blavatsky was visiting with Professor and Mrs.
Between September 17 and October 16, 1875, Mme.
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