The volume above, seen housed in its silk and velvet-lined case, represents the peak of twentieth-century book arts.  Sangorski & Sutcliffe was founded in an attic in Bloomsbury in 1901 by two apprentice binders, and in only a few years it had become one of the most important binderies in the world. Francis Sangorski and his partner George Sutcliffe produced exquisite luxury bindings incorporating delicate inlays and onlays, detailed silver and gilt work, and valuable gemstones. Sangorski’s brother Alberto soon joined the firm as a calligrapher, and created some of the greatest illuminations of the period. The firm is perhaps best remembered for the book known as “The Great Omar“, a copy of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám incorporating 150 individual jewels in its covers, which sank with the Titanic in 1912 only weeks before Sangorski himself died in a drowning accident.

This  copy of A Dream of Fair Women by Alfred Tennyson was hand-written and illuminated on vellum by Alberto Sangorski and finely bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe sometime between 1905 and 1911. The covers are blue-green morocco with brown and red onlays and exquisite gilt blocking, and feature five garnet and six turquoise cabochons inset into the upper cover. A very handsome example of the illuminations and jeweled bindings for which the firm was famous. As usual, click to enlarge the images.

Turquoise and garnet on the Sangorski & Sutcliffe binding.

Title page illuminated by Alberto Sangorski.

Jeweled binding by Sangorski & Sutcliffe.

Wanted for Incitement to Murder: Nazi propaganda leaflet of Churchill with a Thompson sub-machine gun.

One of the most famous propaganda images of the Second World War, this photo of Winston Churchill with a Thompson sub-machine gun, or Tommy gun, was taken while the Prime Minister was inspecting a coastal defence unit at Hartlepool in July 1940. But Churchill’s resemblance to a stereotypical American mobster wasn’t lost on the Nazis, who began dropping these propaganda leaflets over Britain within weeks of the photo being taken. These leaflets are very delicate, making original copies extremely uncommon.

Verso of the Churchill propaganda leaflet.

A leaf from the Gutenberg Bible containing the Old Testament, Book of Jeremiah.

We made an exciting acquisition this week, a single leaf from a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, the first substantial book produced using movable type. Also known as the 42-Line Bible, it was printed in Mainz between 1450 and 1455 by Johann Gutenberg and his business partner Johann Fust. Gutenberg’s genius lay in his development and combination of three distinct technologies:

• Movable type – each letter was an individual unit cast from metal, meaning that text could be efficiently assembled, broken down, and reassembled. Other techniques for producing type had occasionally been employed in Europe and China, but Gutenberg, who had trained as a goldsmith, perfected the process of casting the individual pieces so that they could be produced quickly and easily.
• The printing press – based on screw-driven wine and olive presses, this was one of the world’s first mass-production machines.
• Ink – Traditional water-based inks were too thin and runny to be used in mechanical printing, so Gutenberg developed a thicker oil-based ink that would adhere to the type.

Gutenberg probably printed other small books and ephemeral items, but little evidence of these survives, and it was the Bible that would stand as his masterpiece. Its appearance was based on manuscript Bibles, with the type designed to mimic hand-written text and space left in the margins for illuminations (many surviving examples contain beautiful designs commissioned by the original purchasers). Gutenberg also planned to print red initial letters, but this was inefficient because it required two press pulls. Instead, spaces were left within the text so that scribes could finish the job. It is estimated that 160–185 copies were printed, with a small number on vellum, the traditional material of book pages, and the rest on paper, which was more suited to printing.

Though Gutenberg’s business eventually failed, printing quickly spread across Europe and was firmly established in most regions by 1500. Today there are 48 known copies of the Gutenberg Bible, of which only 21 are complete, and other copies are known from fragments. Most are in institutions, and the last copy to appear at auction fetched two million dollars in 1978 (Christie’s New York, 7 April, 1978, lot 1);  a similar copy today could be worth up to 35 million.  Our leaf was taken from a Gutenberg Bible in the 1920s, when a New York book dealer named Gabriel Wells divided an imperfect copy into individual leaves and a few larger fragments, selling them in morocco folders along with a bibliographical essay by prominent book collector A. Edward Newton. These became known as “Noble Fragments”. Ours is from the Old Testament, containing Jeremiah chap. 18, with parts of chaps. 17 and 19.

It was not Tolkien’s original ambition to become a popular author. Instead, he was interested in philology, particularly the ancient languages and epic literature of the Anglo-Saxons and Scandinavians. After graduating from Oxford he served in the First World War, then returned to the UK to take up a post as lecturer in philology, first at Leeds and then at Oxford.

As early as 1918 Tolkien was devising the elaborate mythology and languages that would form the basis for the Middle Earth of his novels, but his first fantasy book didn’t begin to take shape until the late 1920s, when he told his young sons the stories that would become The Hobbit. These were first written down in the early 30s, and in 1936 a former student recommended the story to the publishers Allen & Unwin, who agreed to publish the book following an excited review from their most suitable reader, Stanley Unwin’s ten-year-old son Rayner.

As discussed in previous posts, one of the reasons that people collect first editions is because the author often has a hand in the design of the book, and Tolkien is an excellent example. Though Allen & Unwin had not planned on illustrating the book due to the expense, the professor submitted a number of his own drawings for consideration. The publishers were so charmed by them that, as Susan Dagnall wrote to the author, “we could not but insert them, although economically it was quite wrong to do so. And when you sent us the second batch we felt just the same!” (Hammond & Anderson p. 10). This led to the request that Tolkien design the dust wrapper himself, resulting in the unique and striking jacket depicted below. They also solicited Tolkien’s advice on the cloth binding, accepting his design of a dragon at the bottom edge and mountains at the top. Both the jacket and the binding are now iconic.

First edition of The Hobbit with dust jacket.

Cloth binding of the first edition of The Hobbit.

The first edition of The Hobbit was published on 21 September, 1937 in a print run of 1,500 copies that was sold out by 15 December of that year. The example above  is an extraordinary copy with only very slight toning to the spine. It’s the nicest that any of our staff have seen.

The best way to identify a first edition of The Hobbit is to check the publication information on the title page, where the publisher should be named as “George Allen & Unwin Ltd”. The back of the title page should look like the image below, with no dates later than 1937. When the first edition had sold out, a second impression was published that included colour illustrations for the first time. It looks similar to the first impression and is also dated 1937, but states “second impression” on the back of the title page. Though the second impression is more easily attainable than the first, it is desirable particularly for the attractive colour illustrations, and makes an excellent choice for new collectors or as a gift.

Publication information in a first edition of The Hobbit.

The other point to look out for is on the dust jacket, if your copy has one. The rear flap has a misspelling that only appears on first editions:  “Dodgson” is incorrectly spelled “Dodgeson”, and in most cases this has been hand-corrected in ink by the publishers, as in the example below:

Misspelling and hand-written correction on a first edition dust jacket for The Hobbit.

Following the success of The Hobbit, Allen & Unwin pressed Tolkien for a sequel. He first suggested the publication of material he had composed for the history of Middle Earth, stories and poems that would later be published as The Silmarillion. Finding this assortment of material confusing, the publishers asked instead for another book about Hobbits. Tolkien did his best to oblige, beginning The Lord of the Rings as a simple story in the vein of his earlier work. But, as he explained in the foreword to the second edition, “the tale grew in the telling”, and the Hobbits found themselves deeply involved in the mythic history that had always preoccupied their creator.

The Lord of the Rings, first editions in dust jackets.

This novel took much longer to write, with Tolkien composing on and off between 1939 and 1952, and its final length was an astonishing 1,192 pages. Allen & Unwin were wary. Rayner Unwin, the little boy who had enthusiastically endorsed The Hobbit, was now a young man working with the family firm, and he wrote to his father that the book was “a work of genius” (Hammond & Anderson p. 88). But the cost of printing was immense, and commercial success, despite the popularity of its predecessor, was uncertain. To minimize their financial risk they convinced Tolkien to publish the novel in three installments, with the understanding that if the first failed they would not publish the remaining books.  They also came to an arrangement, unusual for that time, in which the author would not receive profits until after the books had paid for themselves. These novels would not be illustrated, but Tolkien did design the dust jackets and his son Christopher drew the maps. The examples above are an exceptionally fine set; it is rare to come across volumes from the trilogy without some tanning of the jackets.

The three books in The Lord of the Rings trilogy were published in the following order:

The Fellowship of the Ring – 29 July, 1954 in an edition of 3,000 copies

The Two Towers – 11 November, 1954 in an edition of 3,250

The Return of the King – 20 October, 1955 in an edition of 7,000

Given these limitations, there are only 3,000 possible complete first edition sets of the trilogy in existence, and with attrition the actual number is even lower, making these sets genuinely scarce in commerce. A second edition, extensively corrected and with Tolkien’s new preface explaining the origin of the novel, was published in 1966, and the first one-volume edition (based on the text of the second edition) was published in 1968. This one-volume edition was the first time that the book appeared as the author had originally intended it. Both of these later editions are also considered collectible, and are less difficult to obtain than first editions.

The best way to identify first editions of The Lord of the Rings is by checking the publication information at the front of each volume. The publisher should be named on the title page as “George Allen & Unwin Ltd”. Check the dates on the back of the title page – the first two books should be dated 1954, and the third dated 1955, with no later dates present. See the example taken from a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring, below:

Publication information in a first edition of Fellowship of the Ring.

One of the most common questions we get about copies of these books is “How can it be a first edition if the dust jacket lists the later books in the series?” For most books (for instance James Bond novels and the Harry Potter series) it is important to make sure that the dust jacket or list of works by the same author does not name books published later, which would indicate that your copy is not a first edition. The Lord of the Rings is a significant exception to this rule. Because the series was originally written as one long book, and only split into three for financial reasons, the publishers could anticipate the books to come and used the dust jacket flaps to advertise them. Below is the correct rear jacket flap from The Fellowship of the Ring:

Despite the success of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien never gave up the hope that his mythology of Middle Earth would be published. Much of the material existed in manuscript form, but in his latter years Tolkien was not able to devote the time and energy that editing it entailed. At his death in 1973 he appointed his youngest son Christopher, who had been intimately involved in the inception and publication of the earlier books and, like his father, was an English lecturer at Oxford, to serve as editor and prepare the manuscripts for publication. The result was The Silmarillion, first published in 1977 by Allen & Unwin. First editions of this text are more common than those of of Tolkien’s earlier books, and fine copies can be obtained for under £100, making it an excellent starting-point for new collectors.

First edition of The Silmarillion.

This post has only scratched the surface of Tolkien collecting. In addition to the posthumously published books of mythology such as The History of Middle Earth, there are his professional academic publications, children’s books unrelated to Middle Earth, signed copies, letters and manuscripts, and volumes from his personal library. To learn more you can consult the resources outlined below:

• The best resource on Tolkien’s books, their publishing history, and how to identify them is J. R. R. Tolkien: A Descriptive Bibliography by Wayne G. Hammond and Douglas A. Anderson (this is out of print, and copies are available from used book dealers for between £60 & £200 pounds).

• The definitive work on Tolkien’s life is Humphrey Carpenter’s J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography.

• Another excellent resource is The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien.

• To find out what students Martin Amis and Philip Larkin thought about their Anglo-Saxon lectures with Professor Tolkien see this recent New Yorker piece by Adam Gopnik.

• For those looking forward to the film version of The Hobbit, there’s always the official blog, where the crew has been posting short videos about the production.

To see the Tolkien-related items we have in stock click here. If you think you have a first edition or signed book that you’re interested in selling please contact us.

Sea Legs by Oliver Herford (1931).

This utterly charming little book was placed on my desk by a colleague who knows about my secret desire to be a flapper. Published in 1931 after originally appearing in the periodical The Delineator, Sea Legs was written by the American poet and illustrator Oliver Herford (1863–1935), a prolific magazine contributor best remembered for his humorous books The Rubíáyát of a Persian Kitten  and The Little Book of Bores. He was also famed for his bon mots, and Google reveals that almost everyone believes he was described as “the American Oscar Wilde”, though no one seems to know by whom (and, even if true, he wasn’t the only one – Mark Twain was also saddled with the title). Nevertheless, he was a truly talented humorist and illustrator, with The New York Sun arguing that “There is no one else quite as funny as he is and probably never will be”.

Sea Legs is a satirical alphabet book, relating the delights and annoyances of voyages in the era when traveling between Europe and North America meant spending at least a week at sea, a social event with the opportunity to become intimate, for better or worse, with fellow passengers and crew. Herford’s illustrations of flappers caught in a myriad of titillating shipboard situations are a delight. I’ve included a good selection below, and strongly encourage you to explore the above links to Persian Kitten and Book of Bores. A rare title, this copy includes the dust jacket and a very attractive folding case that reproduces the cover image (see the final picture).

D’s the Deck-steward–

With careful financing

He will give you a chair

Where the view is entrancing.

E’s the Electrical Horse

in the Gym.

It won’t take you far

but ’twill keep you in trim.

F is the flapper

Who walks the first day

By her Lone, but tomorrow

It won’t be that way.

G’s for the Gulls

I wish they’d explain

How they eat such a lot

and their figures retain.

N is the Newly-Weds?

Nay, guess again,

His wife’s in Seattle,

her hubby’s in Maine.

O is the Ocean

a watery waste

With a nauseous motion

and terrible taste.

P is the Pet on his

mistress’s knee

Oh who wouldn’t

envy a Puppy

at sea!

Se is for Sea Legs,

but if you ask me

The way I should spell

it is S double E.

U’s that old Ulster

don’t talk of not keeping it

If you summer in Europe

You’ll sleep, live and

eat in it.

V is the Vamp, who

believes that if she

Should vamp Daddy Neptune

he’d give up the sea.

Milne biographer Ann Thwaite speaks on the Milne-Shepard partnership and the significance of the items in the collection.

Pat and Pom reminisce about their first meeting and building the collection.

Pat speaks about the importance of Winnie-the-Pooh in his childhood.

The culinary highlight of the evening.

Pat signs copies of the limited edition catalogue.

Winnie-the-Pooh presentation inscription to Christopher Robin & Winnie-the-Pooh.

Above, a presentation copy of Winnie-the-Pooh inscribed by Milne to both his son and Winnie-the-Pooh, “For Moonest Moon and Poohest Pooh from their adoring Bluest Blue. Oct. 16th 1926”. Christopher Robin Milne was born on 21 August 1920 and quickly became one of the sources of inspiration for his father’s writing. “Moonest Moon” refers to his nickname, “Billy Moon”, which originated from his parents’ nickname for him (Billy) and his childish pronunciation of his surname. “Blue” was the elder Milne’s nickname, probably from the colour of his eyes, and because of his penchant for wearing blue clothing.
The toy bear was a top-of-the-range Alpha Farnell bought at Harrods for Christopher Milne’s first birthday, known initially as Edward or Edward Bear, then later rechristened Winnie-the-Pooh (after a favourite bear cub at London zoo). In later life Christopher Milne described Pooh as “‘the oldest [toy], only a year younger than I was, and my inseparable companion. As you find us in the poem ‘Us Two’, so we were in real life. Every child has his favourite toy, and every only-child has a special need for one. Pooh was mine, and probably, clasped in my arms, not really very different from the countless other bears clasped in the arms of countless other children” (Enchanted Places, pp. 76–79). Inscribed by the author to both Christopher Robin and his “inseparable companion”, this stunning association copy is arguably one of the most important children’s books in commerce, standing alongside only the copy of Alice in Wonderland inscribed to Alice Liddell.

Fine first edition copies of all four Pooh books.

The set pictured above includes fine first editions of all four of the Pooh books. Like most children’s books, the Pooh stories were usually read to pieces, and copies in such beautiful and fresh dust jackets are incredibly rare. This is the best set we have ever seen.

Winnie-the-Pooh with an original, full-page drawing by E. H. Shepard.

The collection includes a set of three first edition large-paper copies signed by the author and illustrator, each with a significant original illustration in ink by Shepard. Winnie-the-Pooh is illustrated on the verso of the front blank with a charming image of Christopher Robin in the bath as well as Pooh puzzling over the reverse of a bath mat. Now We Are Six is illustrated with an image of Christopher Robin resisting his nanny, who wields a hairbrush. Decorating the title page of The House at Pooh Corner is an illustration of Christopher Robin knighting a kneeling Pooh, from the poignant final chapter in which the boy says good-bye to his childhood friends. Only a handful of books with original drawings by Shepard have come to market over the years. These are the only large paper examples that we can find in sales records, and they are clearly drawn with the utmost care and attention, probably for commission. A spectacular and unique set.

Now We Are Six with original illustration by E. H. Shepard.

Original drawing by E. H. Shepard in The House at Pooh Corner.

Original photographs of Christopher Robin and Pooh.

These original photographs depict Christopher Robin Milne and Winnie-the-Pooh with grandfather John Vine Milne (1845–1932) who ran Henley House private school in Kilburn, remarkable for having (briefly) H. G. Wells as a science master and Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe, as a pupil; and, from 1894, Streete Court preparatory school in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent. A. A. Milne was a pupil at Henley House before winning a scholarship to Westminster School. Photos of this nature are extremely rare in commerce.

An original letter from A. A. Milne to E. H. Shepard.

A hand-written letter from A. A. Milne to Ernest H. Shepard discussing the progress of the latest Pooh book and a potential collaboration on a volume of Mother Goose rhymes. Milne begins, “Dear Shepard, I enclose the latest Pooh. I saw the drawings of the first two at Methuens yesterday, and loved them”. Milne is referring to Winnie-the-Pooh, which was in production during the first half of 1926 and published on October 14th of that year. It appears that Shepard was illustrating individual chapters as Milne wrote them, here having completed drawings for two chapters and awaiting more text. Milne goes on to discuss the planned Mother Goose (which would not be completed). As evidenced by this letter, Milne had an unusually supportive relationship with his illustrator. Earlier that year he had offered Shepard a 20% stake in the royalties from Winnie-the-Pooh, an unprecedented move at the time (Thwaite pp. 296-297). Now his offer is even more generous, as he proposes “that we share 50/50″ of the Mother Goose royalties.  A very nice letter providing a glimpse into one of the most important creative partnerships in children’s literature.

Original working drawing for the map of the Hundred Acre Wood.

An impressive and detailed map of the Hundred Acre Wood, this is the only known preparatory drawing for the map that was used as the endpapers of Winnie-the-Pooh. Shortly after the publication of Milne’s first children’s book, When We Were Very Young, he purchased Cotchford Farm, located on the edge of the Ashdown Forest in East Sussex, and it was this landscape that would inspire many of the Pooh stories. Although the geography was not revised between this initial sketch and the book’s publication, several captions were changed. “Eeyores Gloomy Place” was first “Eeyores Pasture Land” and “The Floody Place” was originally captioned “Floods Might Happen Here”. The caption at the foot originally appeared as “Drawn by Me helped by Mr Shepard” and shows a process of revision. Additionally, at the top of the map Shepard asks the question, “What sort of House is Kangas?” A beautiful working drawing of one of the most familiar landscapes of childhood.

In the coming weeks we’ll also be attending the Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair in London, the Paris Map Fair, and the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair. Please stop by and say hello, or visit our shop in London, which maintains its regular business hours during the fairs.

Our stand at the Toronto Antiquarian Book Fair.

The belief that Shakespeare did not write the works attributed to him originated in the mid 19th century, coinciding with an upsurge in his popularity and with the Victorian interest in puzzles and mysteries. Though more than 70 candidates have been proposed as the true author, for many years the most popular option was the natural philosopher and politician Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626).

As a young man Bacon lived for several years in France, where he studied statecraft and learned about cryptography, a field in which that nation was leading the rest of Europe. He developed his own “bilateral” cipher, which used the letters a and b to generate the entire alphabet, like this:

a = aaaaa

b = aaaab

c = aaaba

d = aaabb

… and so on. But if used outright this was still identifiable as a code and could be broken. Instead, Bacon needed to disguise the fact that the message was in code, and the power of his cipher lies in his realisation that a and b don’t have to be letters–they can be anything that can be divided into two classes. For example, regular text and bold text. To warn a secret agent to “fly”, Bacon could send a message saying the opposite:

do not go til i come

aabab ababa babba

fly

Here the words “do not go til I come” are meaningless to the intended recipient; all that matters is the pattern of plain and bold text, where plain letters stand in for a and bold letters for b, which in turn code for the true message. The cipher was ingeniously flexible, meaning that Bacon could “make anything signify anything”. Poetry, numbers, musical notation, even a drawing or a group of objects could disguise a secret message.

Though Bacon developed his cipher in the 1570s it wasn’t fully published until his first philosophical work, The Advancement of Learning, appeared in its Latin edition of 1623. He did, however, discuss ciphers in general in the first edition of 1605, and in the reproduced passage below he explains that anything may signify anything – “omnia per omnia” – by “infoulding”, or encoding, it:

Elizabeth Gallup

Returning to Shakespeare, one of the most well-known Baconians, an American school teacher named Elizabeth Gallup (1838–1934), became intrigued by the bilateral cipher. She believed that Bacon had used it to encode secret messages in the printed versions of the Shakespearean texts, with subtle differences between typefaces being the key to the cipher (the difficulties this would have presented to early modern printers seem to have been overlooked). To Gallup, the bilateral cipher proved that Bacon was not only the author of Shakespeare’s plays, but also the son of Queen Elizabeth and brother of the Earl of Essex, and that he had written works attributed to Christopher Marlowe and other authors, as well as five previously unknown tragedies based on contemporary events. She even travelled to London in the belief that the missing manuscripts were still hidden in the neighbourhood of Islington.

At the beginning of the 20th century a wealthy and eccentric Baconian named George Fabyan founded the Riverbank Institute, a private research organisation housed on his estate in Geneva, Illinois. In addition to departments investigating medicine and agricultural science, there would be an American Academy of Baconian Literature, which Elizabeth Gallup was hired to direct. Here she set out to research the bilateral cipher using new photographic techniques, and began producing books and articles explaining her work.

Photos of the Riverbank Laboratories and the equipment used to investigate the bilateral cipher in early modern texts.

In 1915 a young biologist named William F. Friedman was hired to run Riverbank’s Department of Genetics, but found himself drawn instead to Gallup’s department. As a child he had been introduced to cryptography by Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Gold Bug”, and he was interested in the bibliographical and and photographic methods the team used. He was also attracted to Gallup’s young assistant, Elizebeth Smith, herself an expert cryptographer. Once he began working with the Baconians it became apparent that Friedman had “an intuitive grasp of cipher systems that must have been breathtaking” (Sherman). Soon he was creating many of the cryptographic images used in the department’s publications, as well as producing his own work such as the first description of the index of coincidence, an important tool in code-breaking.

At the outbreak of the First World War Riverbank was the only institution in the United States with expertise in cryptography, and in a short time William and Elizebeth were cracking codes for the war effort and training the US military’s first unit of elite cryptographers. In a beautiful example of the power of the Baconian cipher, Friedman had his recruits pose for a group photograph that used their bodies to encode the phrase “knowledge is power” (click here to see a decoded version of the photograph – the soldiers facing the camera represent a and those facing away represent b).

William Friedman with an AT&T cipher machine.

In May 1917 William and Elizebeth Smith married, and in 1918 he volunteered for military service, serving as the chief cryptographer to General Pershing. After the war the couple moved to Washington D. C., where both played important roles in the development of government cryptanalysis (a term that Friedman had himself coined). Friedman became chief cryptanalyst for the War Department in 1921. He helped develop the United States’ most important cipher machine (SIGBA) and his numerous books and articles formed the foundation of modern, scientific cryptography. Elizebeth worked for the War Department and the Navy, and later during Prohibition for the Treasury, where she cracked bootleggers’ codes. William Friedman’s greatest success came at the outbreak of the Second World War, when his team broke the Japanese code PURPLE, allowing the US to intercept high-level Japanese diplomatic communications (including the order to cease negotiations that preceded the attack on Pearl Harbor). After the war he worked for the new National Security Administration, and retired in 1956, after more than thirty years as the government’s leading cryptographer.

William and Elizebeth’s work came full-circle  in the 1950s, when they turned their attention back to Shakespeare and produced The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined, a masterful work on the Baconian controversy. Published in 1957, it conclusively demolished the theory that any encoded messages are present in early editions of Shakespeare. Despite being debunked, the early Riverside publications that gave “the world’s greatest cryptographer” (Kahn) his start are highly sought-after by modern book collectors, and we are lucky enough to have two of these volumes in stock:

The Keys to Deciphering the Greatest Work of Sir Francis Bacon. Geneva, IL: Riverbank Laboratories, 1916.

Fundamental Principles of the Baconian Ciphers and Application to Books of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Geneva, IL: Riverbank Laboratories, 1916.

Many of Riverbank’s publications were produced in unusual formats using materials suggestive of  17th-century England, such as the the light-brown reverse calf in the image above. The Riverbank team also took advantage of new photographic techniques, and many of the pages in these books are reproduced entirely photographically rather than by traditional printing methods. Originally published in very in low numbers, these fragile materials made the books even less likely to survive, and they are rare today, with only five copies of Fundamental Principles of the Baconian Ciphers known to be held institutionally.

Title page.

The Baconian Bi-Lateral Cipher.

An explanation of Bacon’s cipher (click to enlarge). Note William Friedman’s signature on the lower right – this appears on many of the pages that he created for these publications.

Examples of the purported a and b letterforms in the works of Shakespeare.

Elizabeth Gallup’s theory rested on the use of two different types in the early editions of Shakespeare. Much of the The Keys for Deciphering the Greatest Works of Sir Francis Bacon is given over to analyzing the two forms of each letter. Unfortunately for her theory, it was common for early modern printers to use a variety of type, not all of which was identical. And it would have been almost impossible for the compositors to identify tiny variations in the letters while setting the type.

Example of a Bi-Formed Alphabet.

The Bi-Formed Alphabet Classifier.

The Bi-Formed Alphabet Classifier

The two removable guides shown above were meant to be used while reading the Shakespearean texts, for quick and easy identification of the letter-forms. Both include Friedman’s signature.

The cipher as used in the list of principal actors.

On the left, the original catalogue of Shakespeare's works, and on the right, Gallup's "updated" list.

Though it doesn’t make the authorship controversy any less troublesome (or the film Anonymous any less laughable) we can take some comfort in thanking Bacon and his followers for many of the cryptographic breakthroughs of the 20th-century. As James Shapiro writes in Contested Will, “…Mrs. Gallup never achieved the fame [she] sought, but their work on ciphers helped win a war”.

To learn more about these subjects you can explore the resources outlined below:

• How to Make Anything Signify Anything is an excellent piece by William H. Sherman published in the winter 2010/11 issue of Cabinet magazine. It contains a more detailed discussion of the bilateral cipher and of Friedman’s work at Riverbank, as well as some excellent photographs (and the Knowledge is Power photo is available as a poster). Sherman is also the author of two of my favourite book history publications, John Dee and Used Books.

• The Friedmans’ interest in books extended to the mysterious Voynich manuscript, which they spent much of their free time trying to decode. This article discusses their work on it in detail.

• Academic and blogger Harold Syme has written several excellent pieces on Anonymous and the Shakespeare controversy, particularly People Being Stupid About Shakespeare & Enough Already. His RSS feed is a must for anyone interested in the early modern era.

• Contested Will, by James Shapiro, examines the origins, history, and cultural implications of the authorship controversy. Shapiro has also written an excellent take-down of Anonymous published in the New York Times on 16 October.

• The Codebreakers, by David Kahn, is the definitive history of cryptography.

• The Shakespeare Authorship page is a comprehensive collection of resources on the authorship controversy, with the editors on the Stratfordian side.

• The Marshall Foundation houses the archives of William and Elizebeth Friedman, and each finding aid includes a short biography.

• The NSA also hosts short biographies of both William and Elizebeth Friedman.

• One of the world’s most famous unsolved codes is the CIA’s Kryptos sculpture, which remains uncracked by even the brightest minds in the security field.