Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00666)

Over the years, The Theosophy Company has prided itself on
providing photographic reprints of many of HPB's ORIGINAL works.

Many ULT students have talked about this publishing standard and have 
sometimes criticized other Theosophical publishers for not following 
this standard.  For example, the late Dallas Tenbroeck from time to 
time on Theos-Talk wrote about this Theosophy Company standard, etc.

Read what The Theosophy Company publisher writes in their 1947 
edition of THE SECRET DOCTRINE:

"With the present printing of THE SECRET DOCTRINE, The Theosophy
Company continues its function of providing students and inquirers
with unaltered editions of the original literature of the Theosophical
Movement. . . . this edition is a perfect facsimile of the original
edition and can be relied upon as such."

unaltered...original....perfect facsimile...can be relied upon....

And earlier in the same "Publishers' Preface", pains were taken to
point out to readers:

"Besides the original edition of 1888---the only one authorized
by Madame Blavatsky---several other editions of this work have
appeared. One of these, the so-called 'Third and Revised
Edition' of 1893, is marred by many thousands of alterations, some
of them trivial, some actual mutilations of the original text."

marred....alterations....

And this preface went on to say the following about another edition
of the SD:

"Except for gratuitous 'corrections' of the author's [Blavatsky's]
Sanskrit scholarship. . . . this edition is virtually an accurate
reproduction of the original text. Its exact authenticity, however,
cannot be determined without laborious comparison with the original."

Note the phrase used by the Theosophy Company:  

GRATUITOUS 'CORRECTIONS'

Now I ask the inquiring reader and student:

How many of the POINTS made in this "Publishers' Preface" by the 
Theosophy Company could be equally applied to THEIR OWN edition of 
THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE??

Let me just apply one of these statements to the VOICE.

The exact authenticity of the Theosophy Company's VOICE OF THE 
SILENCE cannot be determined WITHOUT LABORIOUS COMPARISON with HPB's 
original of 1889.

And the question that remains unanswered is:

Since the Theosophy Company chose to produce photographic facsimiles 
of HPB's original SECRET DOCTRINE, original ISIS UNVEILED and 
original KEY TO THEOSOPHY, why did they decide not to reprint in 
photographic facsimile the original of THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE?

Daniel
http://hpb.cc