This extract for patrons from Orna Ross's novel A Life Before features Charles Johnston (1867 – 1931), Irish schoolfriend of W.B. Yeats and one of the core founders of the Theosophist Movement. A Sanskrit scholar, Johnston wrote numerous books on Theosophy, as well as many Sanskrit translations. His wife Vera Vladimirovna de Zhelihovsky was niece to the (in)famous Madame Blavatsky—who is also a real-life character in the novel series