Mabel Collins, 1888

Mabel Collins (9 September 1851 – 31 March 1927) was a British theosophist and author of over 46 books.

Life

Collins was born in St Peter Port, Guernsey. She was a writer of popular occult novels, a fashion writer and an anti-vivisection campaigner.[1]

In 1909 she wrote a political play called Outlawed with Alice Chapin. Chapin was an American born actress who was an active suffragette. By the time it was produced at the Court Theatre in November 1911 Chapin was a convicted criminal for her militancy.[2]

Collins joined the Theosophical Society in the 1880s and assisted Helena Blavatsky in editing her Lucifer magazine.[3] Collins resigned from the Theosophical Society in 1889 over teaching differences.[3]

Collins authored The Idyll of the White Lotus (1884) and Light on the Path (1885).[3] It was alleged by Theosophists including Charles Webster Leadbeater that these books were dictated to Collins by Masters of the Ancient Wisdom. Collins denied these allegations and stated that no master had dictated the books, she had written them herself. She also objected to Charles Leadbeater's introduction and notes in the Theosophical Publishing House edition of Light on the Path in 1911.[3]

Gossip

Aleister Crowley claimed that Vittoria Cremers had suggested that Collins was at one time being romantically pursued by both Cremers and alleged occultist Robert Donston Stephenson. Cremers supposedly claimed that during this time she found five blood-soaked ties in a trunk under Stephenson's bed, corresponding to the five murders committed in Whitechapel by Jack the Ripper.[4]

Works

  • Light on the Path (1885)[5]
  • The Prettiest Woman in Warsaw (1885)
  • Through the Gates of Gold (1887)
  • The Blossom and the Fruit (1887)
  • The Idyll of the White Lotus (1890)
  • Morial the Mahatma (1892)
  • Suggestion (1892)
  • Juliet’s Lovers (1893)
  • The Story of the Year (1895)
  • The Star Sapphire (1896)
  • A Cry From Afar (1905)
  • Loves Chaplet (1905)
  • Fragments of Thought and Life (1908)
  • Outlawed (1909) with Alice Chapin - a play staged in 1911[2]
  • When the Sun Moves Northward (1912)
  • The Transparent Jewel (1913)
  • The Story of Sensa (1913) (A mystery play in three acts adapted from The Idyll of the White Lotus).
  • As the Flower Grows (1915)

See also

References

  • Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers. p. 81.
  1. ↑ "Mystical Vampire: the life and works of Mabel Collins, Victorian". The Independent. 24 July 2005. Retrieved 23 October 2017.
  2. 1 2 Maggie B. Gale, 'Chapin, Harold (1886–1915)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2015 accessed 9 Nov 2017
  3. 1 2 3 4 Tillett, Gregory. (2016). The Elder Brother: A Biography of Charles Webster Leadbeater. p. 302. ISBN 978-1317311324
  4. ↑ Lawrence Sutin, Do What Thou Wilt: A life of Aleister Crowley p. 228
  5. ↑ "Light on the Path". wn.rsarchive.org. 1942. Retrieved 23 October 2017.
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