Excerpt: "“You must remember,” said Mme. Blavatsky, “that I never meant this for a scientific work. My letters to the Russian Messenger, under the general title: ‘From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan,’ were written in leisure moments, more for amusement than with any serious design. “Broadly speaking, the facts and incidents are true; but I have freely availed myself of an author’s privilege to group, colour, and dramatize them, whenever this seemed necessary to the full artistic effect; though, as I say, much of the book is exactly true, l would rather claim kindly judgment for it, as a romance of travel, than incur the critical risks that haunt an avowedly serious work”".
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (Yelena Petrovna Blavatskaya, often known as Madame Blavatsky; née von Hahn; Ukrainian: Олена Петрівна Блаватська, Olena Petrivna Blavatska; 12 August [O.S. 31 July] 1831 – 8 May 1891) was a Russian mystic and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy.