Mabel Collins

Minna Mabel Collins (9 September 1851 – 31 March 1927) was a British anti-vivisectionist, occultist and author of over 46 books. She was an important figure in the Theosophical Society during the latter part of the nineteenth century but became critical of Helena Blavatsky and Theosophy after being expelled from the Society.

Life

Collins was born in St Peter Port, Guernsey. She was the daughter of Mortimer Collins. She was a writer of popular occult novels, a fashion writer and an anti-vivisection campaigner. Collins was chairman of the Incorporated Parliamentary Association for the Abolition of Vivisection. She was a vegetarian.

In 1871 Collins married Keningale Robert Cook (1845–1886), a stockbroker and writer who was associated with the Vegetarian Society. Collins joined the Theosophical Society in the 1880s and assisted Helena Blavatsky in editing her Lucifer magazine. Collins left the Theosophical Society in 1889 over teaching differences. Collins later became a critic of Theosophy and allied herself with Elliott Coues in criticizing Blavatsky and claims from the Theosophical Society. 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: A Novel on the Suffrage Question (London: Drame, 1908) with Charlotte Despard. One Life, One Law: Thou Shalt Not Kill (London, Theosophical Publishing Society, 1909) Outlawed (1909) with Alice Chapin, a play staged in 1911 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)