"A Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam book."

Includes bibliographical references (pages 617-628) and index.

"One hundred years after her death, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky remains one of the truly extraordinary figures of all time. HPB, as she is often called, stands forth as a seminal talent of her era. A trailblazer and a visionary, she cofounded The Theosophical Society in New York City in 1875, and more than any other person was responsible for the introduction of Eastern religious and spiritual thinking into the Western world. Her prolific writings opened a new realm of ideas and have influenced poets, writers, philosophers, and scientists up to the present day. All of her books, including the highly influential The Secret Doctrine, although they were first published over a century ago, are still in print and in ever-increasing demand." "Sylvia Cranston's book, the first large-scale biography ever of HPB, took fourteen years to research and write. It focuses on the teachings HPB transmitted as well as on her fascinating life, and it presents a record of her worldwide travels, especially in the Orient and in the Americas, and the important factors that shaped her life's work. Invaluable source material originally published in Russia has been translated into English especially for this work. Cranston consulted hundreds of HPB's letters, some newly discovered and others largely overlooked by previous biographers, thus providing a more complete and definitive portrait of this Russian noblewoman than has hitherto been available."--Jacket.

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