[Rarebooks] fa: 1692 Athenian Mercury: ALPHABET CIPHER + WELSH DISCOVERY OF AMERICA

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, November 9. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/mc3n2m6

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.


The Athenian Mercury. Vol. VI. Numb. 30. London: Printed for John Dunton, 1692. One sheet, folio, (32.5 x 19.5 cm.; 12 3/4 x 7 3/4 in.), printed on both sides. Some browning and small spots, wear to left edge, light worming to bottom margin, not affecting any text.

In this issue of this popular late seventeenth-century English newspaper, the first periodical to use the question-and-answer format, the entire front page is devoted to an alphabetical cipher: "The following Alphabet was sent to us; and, upon Examination, we find it Possible to make near an Hundred Alphabets out of it; which its Impossible any one in the World should ever Decipher." Not being cryptologists ourselves, we can't vouch for the editors' claims, but at the very least it makes for a striking decorative piece. Among the questions posed by readers on the verso is, "Whether or no Prince Meredith of Wales did not find out the fourth Quarter Geographical of the Earth, long before Columbus, or Americus were born?" The editors equivocate in their answer, but admit that it's possible, "since we find Mr. Harvey so much celebrated for finding out the Circulation of the Blood, when we are very well assured it was found out long before him..."