The Voynich Manuscript: The Unsolved Riddle of an Extraordinary Book Which has Defied Interpretation for Centuries - Hardcover

Kennedy, Gerry; Churchill, Rob

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 075285996X ISBN 13: 9780752859965

Publisher: Orion Publishing, 2005

Synopsis

In 1912, Wilfrid Voynich, an antiquarian book dealer, stumbled upon a strange volume, its vellum pages covered in a beautiful but unrecognisable script accompanied by equally mystifying pictures. The codex has remained undeciphered from that day to this. Voynich believed the codex to be the work of medieval philosopher Roger Bacon, others that of the Elizabethan mathematician and occultist John Dee. Whoever created the book—which now resides at Yale University—it remains to this day a singular enigma which continues to defy the best efforts of linguists, cryptologists, and scholars. With the benefit of the authors' exhaustive research, readers can hazard their own guesses as to the meaning and provenance of this most beguiling of mysteries.

About this title

About the Author

The authors are producers and film-makers. Gerry Kennedy is a relative of Voynich and has been researching the manuscript for many years and has amassed a unique archive of material. He has made a number of BBC Radio 4 programmes, including one on the Voynich Manuscript. Rob Churchill has written scripts for the BBC, Thames Television and numerous independent production companies in Britain and abroad.

Review

'This brilliant, page-turning story makes 'The Da Vinci Code' seem like a slightly lame round of Hangman... Kennedy and Churchill's style is certainly very accessible... this will surely give the Voynich Manuscript an audience beyond cryptologists and internet conspiracy theorists, and that is an important achievement.' -- Scarlett Thomas INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'This book is not, as one might have feared, the bearer of another wacky hypothesis; rather it is a fair-minded, lucid and enjoyably written guide to the various theories.' -- Blair Worden SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Gerry Kennedy and Rob Churchull conduct the reader with straight faces and fair minds, and... an admirable amount of relevant detail, and a more admirable absense of the "My Quest" local colour which has disfigured literary investigations since Corvo.' TIME LITERARY SUPPLEMENT 'There's nothing like a good mystery, and here's one that's as impenetrable now as it was when the world first encountered it nearly a hundred years ago... Their [Kennedy & Churchill] exhaustive research... helps readers to make their own guesses.****' WESTERN DAILY PRESS 'They [the authors] are fair-minded and inclusive about the ideas of others, and include a final section in which different experts give their ideas... [a] fascinating introduction to the mystery.' THE TIMES OF ACADANIA (US) 'A facinating paper chase across time and space... [The authors] convey well the eerie draw of the book in a meditation onf the power words have to enlighten or confound.' NOTTINGHAM EVENING POST 'a fair-minded, lucid and enjoyably written guide to the various theories.' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'This brilliant, page-turning story makes 'The Da Vinci Code' seem like a slightly lame round of Hangman' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY

Edition details

• Publisher: Orion Publishing
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 075285996X
• ISBN 13: 9780752859965
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 312