Blavatsky correspondence

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky conducted an extensive correspondence throughout her life. She was perfectly proficient at writing in Russian, in French, and in English.

See Blavatsky Archives for a detailed list of sources.

Letters to A. P. Sinnett

A. Trevor Barker compiled The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett. The original letters are now in the British Library. The text has been made available online by the United Lodge of Theosophists - Phoenix, Arizona and at Theosophical University Press Online.

A chronology of the letters was written by Mary K. Neff: Letters of H. P. Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett: Their Chronological Order. Wheaton, Ill.: Theosophical Press, 1940.

The Judge letters

William Quan Judge made what is probably the first compilation of HPB's correspondence in The Authentic Letters of H.P.B., As Edited by One Of the Main Founders of the Theosophical Movement, available online at HelenaBlavatsky.org and previously, Esoteric-Philosophy.com.

Collected letters

Boris de Zirkoff, followed by Dr. John Cooper, and then Dr. John Algeo, worked diligently to collect all the letters written by Madame Blavatsky, and to organize them in chronological order. Letters from 1861-1879 have been published in a first volume by Dr. Algeo in 2003, The Letters of H. P. Blavatsky.

A great deal of additional work is yet to be done in what promises to be a long series of books of HPB's letters. Several years after Dr. Algeo's retirement, American Theosophist Jon Knebel took up the task of completing the series.

French-language letters

Charles A. Blech collected letters and telegrams written to the early French members of the Theosophical Society, and published them in Contribution á L’Histoire de la Société Théosophique en France (Paris: Éditions Adyar, 1933). Letters from Helena Petrovna Blavatsky are provided in transcripts, and a reproduction of a letter from March 24, 1890 is included. She wrote directly to Commandant D. A. Courmes, M. Biliere, and Madame Lemaître, and addressed others such as M. Tremeschini via letters to the editor of journals. The date range was 1880-1890. During World War II, Nazis took the papers away from the headquarters of the French Section. Papers were returned by the Russians a few years ago, and it is possible that the letters may be found among those documents.

Russian-language letters

• "Letters of H. P. B. to Her Family in Russia" has been made available at BlavatskyArchives.com (the Blavatsky Study Center) of Daniel H. Caldwell: "From December 1894 through December 1895 in the monthly Path magazine of New York, the editor William Q. Judge published a series of articles by Vera Johnston, the niece of H.P. Blavatsky. In this series Mrs. Johnston translated into English excerpts from more than sixty of HPB's letters to her family in Russia. Vera tried to arrange the letters in chronological order and added an explanatory narrative. These letters of HPB give an overview of her life from 1875 to 1890."
• "Helena Petrovna Blavatsky" has been made available at BlavatskyArchives.com (the Blavatsky Study Center) of Daniel H. Caldwell. Reprinted from Lucifer (London), Nov. 15, 1894 - April 15, 1895.
• "Original manuscripts of H.P. Blavatsky". This website is available in Russian and English from the Bakhmut Roerich Society, with text of letters in both languages, and in many cases, scans of the original documents that are held in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (Moscow).

Other letters

• "Letters of H.P. Blavatsky Online" at Blavatsky Archives has correspondence with Monsieur Billiere, Mrs. Hollis-Billings, Henry S. Olcott, Dr. Franz Hartmann, Dr. Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden, Dr. Elliot Coues, her family, William Quan Judge, and others.
• Blavatsky HP - Letters at Teopedia.
• H.P.B. Speaks. 2 volumes. Adyar: Theosophical Publishing House, 1950 and 1951. Letters from the Adyar Archives, including some to General Lippitt.
• H. P. Blavatsky to the American Conventions, 1888-1891, available at Blavatsky Net.
• Some Unpublished Letters of H. P. Blavatsky, compiled by E. R. Corson is available at Theosophical University Press Online. There are altogether 17 letters. The correspondents are Professor Hiram Corson in 1875-1876; Mrs. Corson in 1876 and 1878 (written in French); and Alexander N. Aksakof (introducing Madame Corson, in French, 1878). This document is available at in two parts at Theosophical University Press Online - part 1 and Theosophical University Press Online - part 2.
• "Extracts from Private Letters", available at Esoteric-Philosophy.com. This text is reproduced from a three-volume collection, Theosophical Articles, by H. P. Blavatsky, Los Angeles: Theosophy Company, 1981. See volume I, pp. 115-123.
• "Blavatsky, H. P. (Helena Petrovna). Letters, 1885-1890." Andover-Harvard Theological Library.
• "Skinner, J. Ralston (James Ralston). Papers, 1863-1887." Andover-Harvard Theological Library.
• Life of Dayanand, by Har Bilas Sarda, quotes letters to Dayanand Saraswati. Ajmer, India: P. Bhagwan Swarup, 1946. Available at Internet Archive.