Formed Collection

Dr John Cooper Theosophy Collection

In 2003 the National Library acquired the collection of the late Dr John Cooper, a notable Australian historian of the Theosophical Movement. The collection consists of nearly 4,000 books and pamphlets, more than 240 serial titles and 30 large boxes of archival material. The book component of the Dr John Cooper Theosophy Collection has been kept together as a formed collection. The serials have been integrated into the Library’s Serials Collection and the archival component is housed in the Manuscripts Stack.

John Cooper obtained his Master of Arts in Religious Studies from the University of Sydney in 1986 for a thesis entitled The Theosophical Crisis in Australia: The Story of the Breakup of the Theosophical Society in Sydney from 1913 until 1923. Part of his collection relates to the history of the Society in Sydney, where it had a substantial impact. At the time of his death in 1998, Dr Cooper was working on a multi-volume scholarly edition of the correspondence of H.P. Blavatsky. He was posthumously awarded a PhD from the University of Sydney for a preliminary three-volume analytic study of this correspondence.

Before devoting himself full-time to religious studies, Dr Cooper worked professionally in the field of arts administration. He served as state administrator and director of the Arts Council of New South Wales, as federal administrator of the Arts Council of Australia, and as a senior executive with the Australia Council. A small component of his manuscript collection relates to these activities. He also taught in the School of Studies in Religion at the University of Sydney on Hinduism, Buddhism and the Gnostic tradition.

An article by Philip Jackson on the acquisition of the collection appears in the June 2002 issue of Gateways.

Contents of the collection

A bibliography providing brief details of the books and serials in the collection is available (see below). It is more than 400 pages long and has therefore been split into 5 parts but file sizes are still large and may take some time to load. The bibliography is available in RTF and PDF formats.

Full bibliographic details of titles can be obtained by searching the Library’s online catalogue. As well as searching via author, title, etc., readers can retrieve records for the titles in the collection by doing a search on “Dr John Cooper Theosophy Collection” (select “as a phrase” and “Keywords” from the drop down boxes on the Advanced Search screen).

Use of the collection

Readers visiting the National Library to use the collection will need to register in the Main Reading Room before being able to request material. Details on registration, opening hours, etc. can be found on the reading rooms page. Once titles from the Theosophy Collection have been requested, they will need to be collected and used in the Petherick Reading Room on the Ground Floor (adjacent to the Main Reading Room).

Book titles from the collection may be borrowed by another library through Interlibrary Loan

Bibliography

  • Part 1 (pages 1-77): Introduction to collection
    Use of collection
    Books - alphabetical listing by author from A to David-Neel
    RTF
    (1320KB) PDF (412KB)
  • Part 2 (pages 78-165): Books - alphabetical listing by author from Davids to Kuhn
    RTF
    (1290KB) PDF (354KB)
  • Part 3 (pages 166-246): Books - alphabetical listing by author from Kuhn to Rizvi
    RTF
    (1212KB) PDF (341KB)
  • Part 4 (pages 247-331): Books - alphabetical listing by author from Roberts to Zvelebil
    RTF
    (1265KB) PDF (354KB)
  • Part 5 (pages 332-399): Books without main entry author - alphabetical listing by title
    Serials - alphabetical listing by title
    RTF
    (858KB) PDF (268KB)

Enquiries

Further enquiries about the books and serials part of the collection should be addressed to:

Manager, Overseas Collection Development
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
Telephone: +61 2 6262 1386
Facsimile: +61 2 6273 4492
E-mail: mbatten@nla.gov.au

Further enquiries about the manuscript part of the collection should be addressed to:

Reference Archivist
Manuscripts Branch
National Library of Australia
Canberra ACT 2600
Telephone: +61 2 6262 1259
Facsimile: +61 2 6262 1516
Online: Online Reference Enquiry Form

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