25/05/2022

Books Entirely in Cipher or Shorthand

There are books entirely in cipher or shorthand (not fake ones as I reported before).
Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol was printed in Gregg shorthand in 1918 by The Gregg Publishing Company (Internet Archive). (I learned of this in Elonka Dunin and Klaus Schmeh, Codebreaking, A Practical Guide (2020), p.352.) Except for the front matter and the running head, pages after pages are filled with text in shorthand. Judging from the publisher's name, this appears to have been made for promotion of the Gregg shorthand system.


 

This is about shorthand, not cipher. But there are also books entirely in cipher. Klaus Schmeh's List of Encrypted Books (Cipherbrain) lists more than a hundred such titles. Of these, nos. 00006 (1835; a couple of hundred pages; preserved in British Library, Shelfmark 4783.a.30) and 00007 (1850; 61 pages; preserved in British Library, Shelfmark 944.c.19) are the most interesting for me, because I'm more interested in publications than personal diaries.
The title page of No. 00006 reads as follows:

EBPOB ES LYO UTLUB,
UMGJOML NÝFLOBJOF
LE VYJGY
SONUTOF VOBO UTEMO
UPNJFFJRTO:
ROJMC DUBL LYO SJBFL
ES LYO
FOGBOLF DBOFOBWOP
JM LYO
UFFEGJULJEM
ES
NUJPOM AMJLH UNP ULLUGYNOML.
"Vonon ubo fibemocofl." -- Ofpb. 3.11.
LONDON
M.DCCC.XXXV.

Apart from "London" and the year 1835, all is encrypted.
This is reported in an article titled "A Femail Conspiracy" in The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 April 1869, Page 6 (TROVE) and The Star (Christchurch), 16 June 1869, Page 3 (Papers Past). Both are the same article reprinted from the Pall Mall Gazette. It is not known whether there are other copies than the ones in the British Library.
A 19th-century philologist took interest in this, only to find it is English in cipher rather than any exotic language. The title reads:
Order of the Altar,
Ancient Mysteries
to which
Females were alone
admissible.
Being Part the First
of the
secrets preserved
in the
Association
of
Malden Unity and Attachment.



1 comment:

  1. The same book (but slightly different version?) is also mentioned by tonybaloney back in 2008:
    http://www.aerobushentertainment.com/crypto/index.php?PHPSESSID=35d081d7edde87a2ed343d21c194c6ba&topic=36.20
    according to which the title page is:

    FOGBOLF DBOFOBWOP

    JM LYO

    UFFEGJULJEM

    ES

    NUJPOM AMJLH UNP ULLUGYNOML.
    -----------------------

    “Vonon ubo flbemcofl.” ? Ofpb. 3. 11.


    LONDON.

    M.DCCC.XXXV.


    UMGJOML NYFLOBJOF

    JMLBEPAGLJEM

    ----------

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