Pennsylvania-based Dorrance Publishing Co., Inc. has released “Golden Fleece: The Voynich Manuscript and British Intelligence, 1890-1960,” a new book by Topsham resident Robert C. Williams.

The Voynich Manuscript resides in a library at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. No one can read the manuscript, break its cipher or identify its provenance. Nothing like it exists. No one mentions it until 1912. Why?

“Golden Fleece” tells the true story of London antiques dealer Wilfred Voynich, his relations with British intelligence and the provenance of his 1912 cipher. In this book, Williams posits that Voynich’s manuscript was not an early modern find but a modern creation by Voynich himself and others using materials acquired from an antiques warehouse in Florence, Italy. The tale of Voynich and his manuscript suggests a modern hoax comparable to Piltdown Man that combines history, espionage, revolution and cryptography.

Williams is a retired Russian historian who has taught history at Williams and Davidson College and Washington University in St. Louis. He has also served on the boards of Agnes Scott College and Wesleyan University and is a co-founder of History Associates Incorporated. He has a special interest in choral and barbershop singing and his family camp on Kezar Lake in Maine. He is the author or co-author of 18 books, one of which, “Russian Art and American Money, 1900-1940,” was nominated by Harvard University Press for the Pulitzer Prize.