Helena P. Blavatsky (1831-1891) is widely celebrated as the leading esoteric thinker of the nineteenth century who influenced an entire generation of artists and intellectuals and introduced Eastern spirituality to the West. Until now, however, readers have been able to know this fascinating woman only through her public writings. Few may have realized that H.P.B. was also a tireless correspondent with family and colleagues, friends and foes, the learned and the simple. Her personal correspondence reveals for the first time the private H.P.B. in all of her sphinx-like complexity rarely visible in her published material.This unparalleled offering contains all known letters H.P.B. wrote between 1860 and the time just before she left for India in 1879. Meticulously edited by John Algeo, former President of the Theosophical Society in America and current Vice President of the international Society, the volume also contains letters to and about Blavatsky, articles, and editorial commentary.

Among them are controversial and colorful letters, like the one H.P.B. sent to the director of the Russian secret police offering to join their ranks. Also documented are her attempts to begin a Society of Spiritualists in Cairo, Eygpt and the tragic and at times comedic troubles she experienced in doing so. You will receive a behind-the-scenes look at the establishment of the Theosophical Society and of the heated debates, both internal and external, surrounding its emergence. And you will experience H.P.B.'s infectious enthusiasm as she corresponds about beginning her first published work, Isis Unveiled.The first of four planned volumes being presented as the H.P. Blavatsky Collected Letters Series, this book delivers all you didn’t know about H.P.B. and with the humor and eloquence of her spellbinding personality.