What with Dorabella, Ancient Cryptography, The Subtelty of Witches, & the Agony Column, this is all growing too large for such a small margin… so I’ll post a new message on the blog very shortly – though not tonight, as I’m playing chess against Kingston.

Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….

My decipherment in that link contains a couple of errors – you’ll find a more up to date solution on the ‘Ancient Cryptography’ website or I could email it if you send me your address. (It contains a few diagrams I can’t post here)

Regards Tony

I remember you well, very nice to hear from you!

Thanks very much for the tips on the three books in cipher – that’s saved me a wasted day in the BL.

I presume your Dorabella decipherment is just as you described in comment #13 here? Compared to just about every other claimed solution I’ve seen, yours has many merits – I wouldn’t like to bet against it.

Incidentally, I didn’t know about your 2006 book “The Agony Column Codes & Ciphers” (I’m a bit more of a pre-1600 cipher guy myself), but I’ve ordered a POD copy, & will review it here before too long.

Best regards, ….Nick Pelling….

I know of 3 books in the British Library written entirely in cipher -

MS Add. 10035, “The Subtelty of Witches”
4783.a.30. “Ebpob es byo Utlub” (Order of the Alter)
944.c.19. “Nyflob es Woflu” (Mysteries of Vesta)

All are simple substitution, the first in Latin the other two English
“The British Library [...] also owns an original volume of an equally obscure manuscript which begins by saying in plain English that no one will ever unravel the meaning of what follows.”
I am not certain but I seem to recollect reading this at the start of one of John Dee’s books found in the Integrated cat. rather than the Manuscripts cat.

PS I see from your home page you used to play chess for Hackney in the 80’s – I may have left by the time you joined but if you played any tournaments then you’ll probably remember me as a player/organiser/arbiter.

Regards
Tony Gaffney
alias
Tony Baloney on the Ancient Cryptography Website
Jean Palmer ‘The Agony Column Codes & Ciphers’

PPS If you ever solve the Voynich I hope it receives a better reception than my Dorabella solution has.

John Dee’s “Monas Hieroglyphica” has been described as “possibly the most obscure work ever written by an Englishman”, with even a 2005 paper by Peter Forshaw not really able to deny its opacity.

But might (as you suggest) the Monas actually be coded or ciphered alchemy? No, not really: to me, it has something of the blurred (and false) geometric clarity momentarily attained by drug trip philosophers. There are flashes of something like insight within the haze: but if you can make sense of it all (I frankly can’t), please feel free to tell the world.

As the Monas itself concludes, “Here the vulgar eye will see nothing but Obscurity and will despair considerably.” You’re not wrong there, Mr Dee.

Cheers, ….Nick P….