VMs: The Entring Book, cracked...

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

Here's a nice report on the Entring Book, a shorthand diary from 1677-1691, 
whose 40,000-word ciphered section was broken recently. I can't claim any 
great credit for finding the story - my grandmother saw it in last Friday's 
Daily Telegraph and passed it on. :-)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F08%2F29%2Fndiary29.xml

	A Puritan's journal written in cryptic shorthand to foil the King's men 
paints a
	vivid picture of 1600s London, reports Will Bennett

	A remarkable million-word account of life in late 17th century England 
which is
	as vivid as Samuel Pepys's diary has been transcribed by experts after lying
	largely forgotten for more than three centuries.

	A specialist code-breaker was brought in to crack the shorthand that Roger
	Morrice, a Puritan minister turned political journalist, used in part of the
	diary to stop the King's agents reading it. ...

The shorthand expert they called in was Dr Frances Henderson (formerly 
McDonald?) from Worcester College (Oxford), who I'll almost certainly be 
contacting shortly. :-)

More links on the same thing:-
	http://home.eircom.net/content/reuters/entertain/1303013?view=Eircomnet
	http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3191099.stm
	http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/seminars_events/events/roger-morrice.html
	http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/news/dp/2003071101
	http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/events2003/rogermorrice.html
	http://www.crassh.cam.ac.uk/events/events2003/rogermorriceprog.html

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....

PS: "The North American Conference on British Studies in Conjunction with 
The Pacific Coast Conference on British Studies" ran a section on 
"SHORTHAND AND CIVILIZATION IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND" in 2000:-

	The Invention of Shorthand and the Creation of Calvinist 'Style': Timothy
	Bright's Characterie in Religious and Cultural Context
	Lori Anne Ferrell (Claremont Graduate University and Claremont School of 
Technology)

	News, Trials, and Shorthand: The Information Revolution of the Seventeenth 
Century
	Michael Mendle (University of Alabama)

	Shorthand and the Army Secretariat During the English Civil Wars
	Frances Henderson (Worcester College, Oxford University)

	Commentator: Steven A. Zwicker (Washington University) 


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