William and Elizebeth Friedman were both researchers in cryptography at The Riverbank Laboratories. This 1957 book is the result of an insightful report that won the Friedmans the Folger Shakespeare Library literary prize. Within it, the Friedmans address theories, which, through the identification of hidden codes, call the authorship of Shakespeare's plays into question. As ciphers were abundantly used in the sixteenth century, such coding is far from impossible. Accordingly, this work gives a fair and scientific hearing to those anti-Stratfordians whose theories were often dismissed completely. The Friedmans document the history and foundations of such theories, before thoroughly examining and critiquing a great number of them. Indeed, it has even been suggested that this text itself contains ciphers, making it of even greater interest to scholars of literary codes and cryptography, as well as those wishing to discover more about the various debates surrounding the authorship of Shakespeare's plays.

Customer reviews

Not yet reviewed
Be the first to review

Log in to review

Review was not posted due to profanity
×

, create a review

(If you're not , sign out)

Please enter the right captcha value

Please enter a star rating.

Your review must be a minimum of 12 words.

How do you rate this item?

Reviews must contain at least 12 words about the product.

×

Product details
- Date Published: April 2011
- format: Paperback
- isbn: 9780521141390
- length: 334 pages
- dimensions: 216 x 140 x 19 mm
- weight: 0.43kg
- availability: Available
Table of Contents
Preface
List of illustrations
Introduction
1. The great controversy
2. Cryptology as a science
3. Ignatius Donnelly and the The Great Cryptogram
4. The cipher in the epitaph
5. Dr Owen and his Word Cipher
6. A miscellany
7. Acrostics and anagrams
8. The long word and other anagrams
9. The String Cipher of William Stone Booth
10. Walter Conrad Arensberg
11. The strange story of Dr Cunningham and Maria Bauer
12. Odd numbers
13. The Biliteral Cipher and Elizabeth Wells Gallup
14. Mrs Gallup and Colonel Fabyan
15. Elizabethan printing and its bearing on the Biliteral Cipher
16. A study of the Gallup decipherments
17. General Cartier and the Biliteral Cipher
18. The Biliteral Cipher: experiments and deductions
19. Conclusion
Index.
Authors
William F. Friedman
Elizabeth S. Friedman