譯自E.L.Voynich齣版於1904年的小說Olive Latham。

此前該書曾有兩個不同名的中譯本，分彆是《奧莉夫·拉森》（顧治洲、陳雲路譯，收在天津人民齣版社1983年版的《伏尼契小說集》第二捲中）和《要塞鍾聲》（陸九如、陸肇明譯，中國文聯齣版公司1986年版）。

Ethel Lilian Voynich, née Boole (May 11, 1864–July 27, 1960) was a novelist and musician, and a supporter of several revolutionary causes. Her father was the famous mathematician George Boole. Her mother was feminist philosopher Mary Everest,niece of George Everest and an author for the early-20th-century periodical Crank. 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.