Theos-Talk Archives (November 2006 Message tt00906)

665 Changes: Not proofreading mistakes 
but intentional changes -- "corrections"

It would appear based on all the FIVE documents quoted below that the 
665 changes & alterations to be found in the Theosophy Company 
edition of THE VOICE OF THE SILENCE are not "proofreading mistakes" 
as vaguely speculated on by Carlos Aveline BUT changes 
and "corrections" actually made by W.Q. Judge, Annie Besant and 
G.R.S. Meade to HPB's original edition!!!!

Apparently John Garrigues of the ULT made the ONE big mistake! [See 
below] 

Hence generations of readers who have used the Theosophy Company ed. 
of the VOICE have read a copy of HPB's VOICE with 665 alterations 
made not only by Judge but also by Besant and Meade!! 

Daniel
http://hpb.cc

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In a letter dated March 30, 1928 and signed by THE
THEOSOPHY COMPANY, the anonymous writer informed Dr.
H.N. Stokes:

"The Theosophy Company is just bringing out an
entirely new edition of *The Voice of the Silence.* .
. .. Sometime ago the Theosophy Company came into
possession of a copy of the original London edition of
*The Voice of the Silence* with the typographical
changes and corrections made by Mr. Judge in his own
hand, and it is this text which is followed in the
edition just being issued by the Theosophy Company. .
. ." [quoted in O.E. LIBRARY CRITIC, July 1928.]

In a follow-up letter dated May 1, 1928, THE THEOSOPHY
COMPANY again stated to Dr. Stokes the following:

"This new [TC 1928] edition . . . is set up *verbatim
et literatim* from a copy of the original edition of
*The Voice of the Silence* as corrected by Mr. Judge
in his own handwriting. This copy we have in our
possession. . . ." [quoted in O.E. LIBRARY CRITIC,
July 1928.]

Some clarification of the above was FINALLY given more than
seventy years later in "The Aquarian Theosophist" (see 
Aug. 17, 2002 issue):

"This change [in THE VOICE concerning the "thin oblong
squares] FIRST occurred in the 1892 edition of the
Voice issued by G.R.S. Mead and A. Besant. Hence it
appears that WQJ based his 1893 edition on the
Mead/Besant reprint rather than HPB's original. ?
EDS." [Caps added. See
<http://www.teosofia.com/Docs/vol-2-10.pdf> p. 2,
footnote 1.]

Further light was thrown on the subject by the
following two documents.

One ULT associate wrote in Oct. 2003:

". . . both of those Stokes letters [cited above] are
mistaken due to the erroneous info he [Stokes] received from
Theosophy Company. At the time (1928) John Garrigues
[of ULT] (whose handwritten note appears on the inside
front cover) did not realize that changes had ALREADY
BEEN MADE in the edition Judge was marking up for
publication."

Another writer also in Oct. 2003 elaborated on the edition
Judge marked up:

". . . Judge did not use HPB's original edition for
his own edition of the Voice, but used the already
doctored 1892 edition which was probably altererd
[sic] by Mead and Besant. . . . this has been verified
because that 1892 copy with Judge's handwriting is in
LA Lodge [of the United Lodge of Theosophists].
. . . "
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