The Occult World

The first volume of the memoirs of Henry Steel Olcott, president-founder of the Theosophical Society. He recounts meeting Blavatsky in 1874, the founding in New York and the writing of Isis Unveiled, as an eyewitness.

Henry Steel Olcott

The first biography of Blavatsky, compiled from accounts by her relatives and friends. It follows her from childhood in Russia through her travels to the founding of the Theosophical Society.

A. P. Sinnett

Countess Wachtmeister lived with Blavatsky while she wrote The Secret Doctrine. Her memoir, with testimonies from other close students, shows the daily life and working methods behind the book.

Constance Wachtmeister

Published in 1883 from the teachings in the Mahatma Letters, this was the first systematic account of theosophical doctrine: the constitution of man, the planetary chain, devachan, karma and the Buddhas.

A. P. Sinnett