The Gadfly

Ethel Lilian Voynich, née Boole (1864-1960), was born and raised in Cork, Ireland. She is most famous for "The Gadfly" (1897), a novel about independence fighters in Italy that sold 2.5 million copies between 1897 and 1957. The book portrays a Catholic cardinal having an illegitimate son, which created a huge controversy at the time of its publication. "An historical novel, permeated with a deep religious interest" (The Critic), it was admired by D. H. Lawrence and Jack London and adapted for stage by George Bernard Shaw (1898). Composer Dmitri Shostakovich wrote "The Gadfly Suite" based upon the novel. Bertrand Russell called it the most exciting novel he had read in the English language.