OLD DIARY LEAVES: THE ONLY AUTHENTIC HISTORY OF THE THEOSOPHICAL SOCIETY
Book Details + Condition: The Theosophical Publishing Society (London). Scarce First Edition, 1910. Hardcover. Blue cloth cover with embossed gilt text. 521 pages. The fourth volume of the series of six, on the history of the Theosophical Society by Colonel Henry Steele Olcott (1832 - 1907), American military officer, journalist, lawyer and the co-founder and first President of the Theosophical Society, a position which he held until his death. From the Editor: "It is six years since the Third Series of Old Diary Leaves appeared in book form, and it is nine years since the contents of the present Volume were published in the pages of The Theosophist. The author, Henry Steel Olcott, passed over in 1907, and as all who knew him well are aware, the publication of the whole of this 'true history of the Theosophical Society' was a matter that lay near his heart.... The volume before us deals with some five years during which the writer travelled all round the world, visiting Japan twice, Europe twice, Ceylon several times; Australia, America, Burma each once, besides, making long lecturing tours in India. These were years which saw the advent of Mrs. Besant to the Theosophical Society, and witnessed the death of Madame Blavatsky, and of her learned Hindu colleague, T. Subba Row. Work on behalf of Buddhist Unity occupied much of the writer's time and energy in his Eastern travels, while, in the West, he devoted a good deal of attention to the study of hypnotism, both in Paris and Nancy." Contains several black and white plate illustrations. Firm binding; rubbed corners and edges; wear to original boards; Theosophical Lodge library inserts on front endpapers, with some penned notations; a few pages with a check mark in their upper right-hand corners. Please see our other first edition OLD DIARY LEAVES - the first, second and third series.
