Ethel Voynich – Music Mystery and Manuscripts delves into the life of Ethel Voynich. It’s part biography, part mystery and part recovery project for one of Ireland’s little known but most intriguing women – Ethel Voynich.
Zoë Comyns tells the story of the relatively unknown Cork born writer and composer Ethel Voynich who sold millions of copies of her anti-Catholic novel The Gadfly in Russia in the early 1900s, campaigned with Russian anarchists to overthrow the Tsar. She also composed of hundreds of musical works, allegedly had an affair with Reilly Ace of Spies and is linked to one of the most intriguing cryptographic books ever written: The Voynich Manuscript (named after her husband Wilfrid Voynich). However, the most intriguing thing is that her work made her famous, but she didn’t know it. Even today in Russia she is revered and though her work was on the Russian school curriculum, she remains out of print with an Irish publisher.
Tune in to The Lyric Feature – Sunday 15th March at 6pm on RTÉ Lyric FM.
