I only recently became aware that The Gadfly was a novel. Not only that but it was written by an Irish/British woman Ethel Voynich - a well-travelled novelist and pianist who supported various revolutionary causes. A popular figure in the Victorian literary scene, (her husband was the book dealer Wilfred Voynich of the mysterious Voynich Manuscript) her book was a bestseller in her lifetime in China and compulsory reading in Russia where she lived for a period in 1887. I think it was popular among republicans around the time of the establishment of the Irish Free State and more recently, among young Iranians. The novel is concerned with revolution, religion and revolutionaries and is set in 1840s Italy (where the book wasn’t popular at all, apparently) where Austrian rule continues to inflame Italian nationalism. Arthur is studying for the priesthood, however, his sense of injustice and a new radical ideology prompts him to renounce catholicism and fight for freedom. Learning that his priest, Montanelli, is his father in more ways than one doesn’t help either so he fakes his own death, runs away, and undergoes a transformation of character returning to Italy defiant, rebellious and out for revenge. He becomes a disguise-wearing spy, a renegade vigilante gun-running in the mountains (so richly described and a precursor to what Hemmingway would later do in For Whom the Bell Tolls) and writing radical tracts for subversive publications. The book is full of religious references and Arthur, disguised, meets his father three times before they finally have it out and things come to their dire conclusion on the feast of Corpus Domini - which, in Christian liturgy, celebrates the real presence of the body and blood of Christ. Comparisons have been drawn between Arthur and Christ.
Anyway, Voynich was rumoured to have had a liaison with the Russian-born secret agent, Sidney Reilly, Ace of Spies and model for Flemming’s James Bond in the period prior to writing the novel and the central character, Arthur is most likely based on him. Whack!