July 13, 2011:  Writers are celebrated in Bronxville--reviews, signing in bookstores, lectures, and places in the local author section of the library.  Recently, for example, a former Wall Street figure who resides here, Norb Vonnegut, has written two acclaimed novels.

But one Bronxville author will not be celebrated by name.  His (or her) name is missing from the title page of a book that is featured in Womrath Bookshop.  The bookstore declines to identify the person.  The mystery author is hardly shy.  An expensive ($8,800) two-thirds-page ad touting the book ran in a recent issue of the prestigious New York Review of Books.

The ad singled out Womrath in Bronxville as the bookstore selling The Voluntary State, a "handsome collector's edition," for $25.

The book presents a "new political concept which stops man from being forced to pay taxes.  If taxes were voluntary, only those who elected to pay would decide how the tax money could be used.  Such an historic change would be the ultimate revolution for man, giving him dominion over his own life."

The book's libertarian theme is carried through such chapters as "Socialism and Central Banking," "The Federal Reserve," "The Gold Standard," and "International Free Trade."  A heavy 124-page volume of coffee-table dimensions, it is printed in large, widely spaced type.

A possible clue to the author's identity may be an entry in the international library reference source Worldcat.  It lists the author as a McMillan Adams, but McMillan Adams is the name given on the title page as the publisher, along with a Manhattan address.  No company by the name is currently listed there.  Nor is any person or company by that name listed in Westchester or New York directories.

Published in 1998, the book is available in six libraries throughout the country, but none in New York, public or private.