Eastern Europe

Wilfrid Voynich is perhaps best remembered for his association with the strange - and still incomprehensible - document that now bears his name. However his life, even from the limited information readily available, is far more curious than might be expected.

Early years

He was born Michał Habdank-Wojnicz, into a Polish-Lithuanian noble family in what was then the Russian empire. He studied at Krakow University, acquiring several degrees - to the level of doctorate - and a knowledge of many European languages, being able to write to publication level in a number of them. He became a revolutionary nationalist, using the name Wilfryd. Following an attempt to free some fellow conspirators from a Warsaw prison, he was arrested and was sent, in 1886, to Siberia from which he escaped in 1890, taking six months to leave Russian territory, ending up in London. His career so far bears some parallels to other revolutionaries and activists in the Russian empire.

In 1893 he married, a fellow revolutionary, Ethel Lilian Boole (daughter of the mathematician, and the feminist Mary Everest, who was a niece of the eponymous Sir George Everest). Their continued revolutionary activities drew the attention of William Melville (later to form the body which would develop into MI5). The couple anglicised their surname to Voynich, and Michal became Wilfred. After a revolutionary associate, Stepniak (who had also worked with the Italian revolutionary Errico Malatesta), died in a railway level-crossing accident in West London, the Voynichs changed direction.

Ethel Lilian became a successful novelist, and translator, probably best known for 'The Gadfly' seemingly in part based on her relationship with Sidney Reilly. Wilfrid became an antiquarian book dealer: apparently selecting this career on the recommendation of an acquaintance at the British Library, whom he had asked for guidance. The choice proved successful, with bookshops in London (1898) and New York (1914), and many travels in Europe and the US to make acquisitions, of incunabula and later works. He became a noted medieval scholar and wrote bibliographical works in many languages, including 'books of which his was the only known printed example' and 'books not in the possession of the British Library'.

It proved a successful decision - Wilfrid prospered, wrote bibliographical and other works in approaching twenty languages, and became a noted medieval scholar. In 1916 he was involved in the return of a book, which he had acquired in good faith, being one of the volumes appropriated from Peterborough Cathedral Library several years earlier by John Edward Tinkler, another noted book dealer. Tinkler, who had dubious associates and pursuits of long standing, had been sentenced in connection with the thefts in 1912. Generously Voynich returned the book, despite its cost.

Code-breaking

A regular visitor to Italy, in 1912 Voynich visited the Villa Mondragone, at the request of the Jesuits - who wished to sell some of their books in order to raise funds. Among the books he acquired was a peculiar volume, of some age and obviously written in code, and which was to provide him with a more than contemporary notability.

Voynich decided, on various grounds, that it had been written by Roger Bacon (this is now considered not to be the case): he spent the next few years attempting to 'crack the code' with the aid of specialists, to no effect. Eventually he linked up with Dr William Romaine Newbold, of the University of Pennsylvania, who developed a system for interpreting the manuscript - which, he claimed, involved a six-fold cipher. However, others, including John Manley, of the University of Chicago, refuted the arguments put forward - there were too many ambiguities in the process, and some of the 'marks' interpreted by Newbold were merely the product of the ink drying on the vellum. (It could also be argued that, given that the document was 'all of a piece' and would have taken some time to construct, whatever system was used would have to be fairly easily generated.)

The rest of Voynich's life seems to have been fairly unmemorable. Having settled in the US he died in New York in 1930. Ethel Lilian Voynich died in 1960, leaving the manuscript to a friend, who sold it to an antiquarian book dealer, who donated it to Yale University. Further investigations and attempts to resolve the code were carried out at various times.

Many theories have been put forward for the Voynich manuscript - like the Anti-Kythira machine it is a 'thing without a historical context' -  of varying degrees of plausibility and implausibility. The document is clearly of some age, and unlikely to have been fabricated by Voynich himself as has been argued (and would a modern 'reconstructor of ancient texts' create only one such document?).

Main Sources

There are many web sites devoted to the document itself, but very little information in English on Wilfrid Voynich himself - which seems to be mostly in newspaper sources of the period. There are a scattering of original documents (to be found via Access to Archives) and his application for naturalisation can be found in The National Archives.

Text copyright © Jackie Speel. An original feature for the History Files.