Notes

Compilation of the occult stories from Helena P. Blavatsky's Nightmare Tales (1892) and Two Stories (1932), plus 'Can the Double Murder?' (first published in December 1875) and 'The Legend of the Blue Lotus' (April 1890), combined with the occult stories which co-founder of the Theosophical Society William Quan Judge wrote for the Theosophical journals The Path and The Theosophist.
    In the 'Introduction' the editors write: "There was some difficulty in finding a suitable Title for these stories of the Psyche [lower self] and the Nous [higher self] in man. The Editors finally chose The Tell-Tale Picture Gallery, as generally indicative of the book's contents." (p.viii) Although the title appears on the spine, only the subtitle is printed on the front cover.
    The title was borrowed from one of Judge's stories, which he wrote (under the penname of Bryan Kinnavan) for The Path (June 1889) and which starts as follows: "Although the gallery of pictures about which I now write has long ago been abandoned, and never since its keepers left the spot where it was has it been seen there, similar galleries are still to be found in places that one cannot get into until guided to them. They are now secreted in distant and inaccessible spots -- in the Himalaya Mountains; beyond them, in Tibet; in underground India; and such mysterious localities."
    The appendix provides some notes about the Theosophical view of psychology for which these stories serve as illustrations, according to the editors, and includes a glossary of terms.

This volume does not include the illustrations from Nightmare Tales or the editorial additions to Two Stories.

Undated, but Dara Eklund, in Theosophy World (February 2000) gives 1942. While this copy has green cloth boards, this volume was also published with both red and blue leatherette boards, and re-published with paper-bound boards as The Tell-Tale Picture Gallery - Occult Stories (1949). Re-published in paperback by the Theosophy Company in 1984.

Links

• Online text of H.P. Blavatsky's stories
• Online text of W.Q. Judge's stories