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The Gadfly by E. L. Voynich



 
 
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  #1  
Old January 12th 09, 04:16 AM posted to rec.collecting.books
Francis A. Miniter[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 257
Default The Gadfly by E. L. Voynich

I came across _The Gadfly_ by E. L. Voynich yesterday at a
book sale, and immediately suspected that it was the source
for the Russian (Soviet era) movie of the same name, the
musical score for which was composed by Dmitri
Shostakovitch. Some of you may have seen the PBS miniseries
_Reilly, Ace of Spies_ that aired back in 1983. It was
based on the biography of the same name by Robin Bruce
Lockhart and starred Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly, a
Russian-born (?) British secret agent who was Ian Fleming's
model for James Bond. The reason I mention it here is that
the producers used the Romance segment from the Gadfly Suite
of Shostakovich as the theme music for the series.

Why all this about Reilly? Well, first a little about E. L.
Voynich, who turns out to be a most interesting human being.
She was born Ethel Lillian Boole, in Cork, Ireland in
1864. Her father was George Boole, the inventor of Boolean
Algebra. Her mother was Mary Everest, niece of George
Everest, the Surveyor-General of India after whom the
mountain was named.

In 1887, she journeyed to Russia, remained there for two
years and became acquainted with a number of
revolutionaries, as well as briefly meeting the Csar. In
1893 she married Wilfrid Michael Voynich, a Polish
revolutionary who had escaped to London in 1890 with the aid
of some of Ethel's acquaintances from Russia and set up the
Society of Friends of Russian Freedom along with her and
another emigre named Sergei Kravchinskii, who was on the lam
from Russia for the murder of the chief of the Csarist
secret police, and who had taught Ethel the Russian language
before her travels there. W. M. Voynich became an
antiquarian bookseller in London in 1894 along with his
wife. (In 1914 they would open a bookshop in New York City.)

In 1895, Ethel Voynich met Sigmund Rosenbaum aka Sidney
Reilly in London. According to historian Robin Bruce
Lockhard, the two of them traveled to Italy together as
lovers. A more recent historian, Andrew Cook, only says
that Reilly was trying to get information on her radical
connections. In any case, their relationship had a literary
offspring, her novel, _The Gadfly_, which she published in
1897. [The copy I bought is the true first edition, Henry
Holt, NY, 1897, as the British publisher Heinemann waited
for American reactions before publishing at home.] The
novel is about the adventures of an international
revolutionary in Italy (would you believe). Reilly later
claimed she was writing about him, though she never verified
it. Others have claimed that Reilly fictionalized his own
background based on the novel. But now at least the
significance of the Romance from Shostakovich's score for
The Gadfly is apparent.

Robin Bruce Lockhart, it should be noted, was the nephew of
R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Acting British Consul General when the
Russian Revolution broke out. He and Reilly were implicated
in a plot to assassinate Lenin and were imprisoned for a
short while before being released. R. H. Bruce Lockhart
wrote of these adventures in his memoir, _British Agent_ .

Ethel Voynich continued to write novels, including _An
Interrupted Friendship_ (1910), which was published in
Russian as _The Gadfly in Exile_ . While her books were not
best sellers in the US or England, by the time she died in
1960 (in New York) at the age of 96, The Gadfly had sold
more than 2,500,000 copies in the Soviet Union. She
published her last book, _Put Off Thy Shoes_ , in 1945. When
she was not otherwise occupied, she composed music. While in
London, because of her revolutionary activities, she came to
know Eleanor Marx (daughter of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels,
Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde.

And if the name Voynich seems familiar to you for some other
reason, you are probably correct. W. M. Voynich, her
husband, in 1912 acquired a manuscript of about 240 pages in
Italy, that was incomprehensible. It is thought to date
from 1450 to 1500 c.e., and is written in an unknown script
and language. Cryptologists have spent decades trying to
decode it without the least success. Not even one word is
known. Some people believe that it is a fake and may have
been manufactured by Voynich. Whether in tribute or
otherwise to W. M. Voynich who brought the manuscript to the
attention of the world, it is now known as the Voynich
Manuscript. It resides now at the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library of Yale University.

And for a bit of romance, when Wilfrid was introduced to
Ethel in London, he said to her that he believed he had seen
her before, when he was in prison in Moscow looking out at a
protest outside on Easter Sunday, 1887. She replied that
she was there.

In 1955 she discovered that she was hugely famous in the
Soviet Union, regarded as one of the best writers of English
fiction. The Russian authorities, on learning that she was
alive and living in New York, sent her a set of her books in
18 different languages. They even arranged to pay her
royalties for their publication of her works.

--
Francis A. Miniter

ως ουκ αν αιων' εκμαθοις βροτων, πριν αν
θανη τις, ουτε ει χρηστος ουτ’ ει τω κακος.
Ads
  #2  
Old January 13th 09, 05:24 AM posted to rec.collecting.books
Johnny Pride
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 24
Default The Gadfly by E. L. Voynich

are you a man or a woman?

"Francis A. Miniter" wrote in message
...
I came across _The Gadfly_ by E. L. Voynich yesterday at a
book sale, and immediately suspected that it was the source
for the Russian (Soviet era) movie of the same name, the
musical score for which was composed by Dmitri
Shostakovitch. Some of you may have seen the PBS miniseries
_Reilly, Ace of Spies_ that aired back in 1983. It was
based on the biography of the same name by Robin Bruce
Lockhart and starred Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly, a
Russian-born (?) British secret agent who was Ian Fleming's
model for James Bond. The reason I mention it here is that
the producers used the Romance segment from the Gadfly Suite
of Shostakovich as the theme music for the series.

Why all this about Reilly? Well, first a little about E. L.
Voynich, who turns out to be a most interesting human being.
She was born Ethel Lillian Boole, in Cork, Ireland in
1864. Her father was George Boole, the inventor of Boolean
Algebra. Her mother was Mary Everest, niece of George
Everest, the Surveyor-General of India after whom the
mountain was named.

In 1887, she journeyed to Russia, remained there for two
years and became acquainted with a number of
revolutionaries, as well as briefly meeting the Csar. In
1893 she married Wilfrid Michael Voynich, a Polish
revolutionary who had escaped to London in 1890 with the aid
of some of Ethel's acquaintances from Russia and set up the
Society of Friends of Russian Freedom along with her and
another emigre named Sergei Kravchinskii, who was on the lam
from Russia for the murder of the chief of the Csarist
secret police, and who had taught Ethel the Russian language
before her travels there. W. M. Voynich became an
antiquarian bookseller in London in 1894 along with his
wife. (In 1914 they would open a bookshop in New York City.)

In 1895, Ethel Voynich met Sigmund Rosenbaum aka Sidney
Reilly in London. According to historian Robin Bruce
Lockhard, the two of them traveled to Italy together as
lovers. A more recent historian, Andrew Cook, only says
that Reilly was trying to get information on her radical
connections. In any case, their relationship had a literary
offspring, her novel, _The Gadfly_, which she published in
1897. [The copy I bought is the true first edition, Henry
Holt, NY, 1897, as the British publisher Heinemann waited
for American reactions before publishing at home.] The
novel is about the adventures of an international
revolutionary in Italy (would you believe). Reilly later
claimed she was writing about him, though she never verified
it. Others have claimed that Reilly fictionalized his own
background based on the novel. But now at least the
significance of the Romance from Shostakovich's score for
The Gadfly is apparent.

Robin Bruce Lockhart, it should be noted, was the nephew of
R. H. Bruce Lockhart, Acting British Consul General when the
Russian Revolution broke out. He and Reilly were implicated
in a plot to assassinate Lenin and were imprisoned for a
short while before being released. R. H. Bruce Lockhart
wrote of these adventures in his memoir, _British Agent_ .

Ethel Voynich continued to write novels, including _An
Interrupted Friendship_ (1910), which was published in
Russian as _The Gadfly in Exile_ . While her books were not
best sellers in the US or England, by the time she died in
1960 (in New York) at the age of 96, The Gadfly had sold
more than 2,500,000 copies in the Soviet Union. She
published her last book, _Put Off Thy Shoes_ , in 1945. When
she was not otherwise occupied, she composed music. While in
London, because of her revolutionary activities, she came to
know Eleanor Marx (daughter of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels,
Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde.

And if the name Voynich seems familiar to you for some other
reason, you are probably correct. W. M. Voynich, her
husband, in 1912 acquired a manuscript of about 240 pages in
Italy, that was incomprehensible. It is thought to date
from 1450 to 1500 c.e., and is written in an unknown script
and language. Cryptologists have spent decades trying to
decode it without the least success. Not even one word is
known. Some people believe that it is a fake and may have
been manufactured by Voynich. Whether in tribute or
otherwise to W. M. Voynich who brought the manuscript to the
attention of the world, it is now known as the Voynich
Manuscript. It resides now at the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library of Yale University.

And for a bit of romance, when Wilfrid was introduced to
Ethel in London, he said to her that he believed he had seen
her before, when he was in prison in Moscow looking out at a
protest outside on Easter Sunday, 1887. She replied that
she was there.

In 1955 she discovered that she was hugely famous in the
Soviet Union, regarded as one of the best writers of English
fiction. The Russian authorities, on learning that she was
alive and living in New York, sent her a set of her books in
18 different languages. They even arranged to pay her
royalties for their publication of her works.

--
Francis A. Miniter

ως ουκ αν αιων' εκμαθοις βροτων, πριν

αν
θανη τις, ουτε ει χρηστος ουτ’ ει τω

κακος.


 




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