The Gadfly

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Ethel Lilian Voynich, née Boole (1864-1960) was a novelist and musician, and a supporter of several revolutionary causes. In 1893 she married Wilfrid Michael Voynich, revolutionary, antiquarian and bibliophile, the eponym of the Voynich manuscript. She is most famous for her novel The Gadfly, first published in 1897 in the United States (June) and Britain (September), about the struggles of an international revolutionary in Italy. This novel was very popular in the Soviet Union and was the top best seller and compulsory reading there, and was seen as ideologically useful; for similar reasons, the novel has been popular in the People's Republic of China as well. By the time of Voynich's death The Gadfly had sold an estimated 2,500,000 copies in the Soviet Union. Ethel Voynich was a significant figure not only on the late Victorian literary scene but also in Russian emigrant circles. Her other works include: Jack Raymond (1901), Olive Latham (1904) and An Interrupted Friendship (1910).