De Zirkoff on HP Blavatsky's Collected Writings

Boris de Zirkoff · Theosophy and Theosophists Series · 15 pages

Fifteen pages carrying the preface that appears in *every volume of the Collected Writings*** — the fifteen-volume edition de Zirkoff compiled between 1966 and 1988, with the index volume following in 1991. Since so many files across this whole site cite that edition, this is the file that explains what is being cited and why it exists. It was revised as recently as October 2025.

De Zirkoff begins with an estimate of the material rather than a description of the edition. The writings constitute, in their totality, one of the most astounding products of the creative human mind; considering their unequalled erudition, their prophetic nature and their spiritual depth, they must be classed by friend and foe alike among the inexplicable phenomena of the age. He then lists the books that were already well known and had gone through several editions — Isis Unveiled of 1877, The Secret Doctrine of 1888, The Key to Theosophy and The Voice of the Silence of 1889, the Transactions of the Blavatsky Lodge of 1890 and 1891, Gems from the East of 1890, and the posthumous Theosophical Glossary, Nightmare Tales and From the Caves and Jungles of Hindustan, all of 1892. The fact that justifies the whole undertaking comes next, and it is a striking one: from 1874 to the end of her life she wrote incessantly for a wide range of journals and magazines, and the combined bulk of those scattered writings exceeds even her voluminous output in book form. He notes what the earliest of them were like — polemical in nature and trenchant in style, published in the best known spiritualist journals of the day — which is borne out by several of the files elsewhere in this section.

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