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Charles Dickens' Shorthand Code

maximus otter

maximus otter

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The literary works of Charles Dickens have been translated into 150 languages and read the world over.

However, there is one body of his work which has remained unread and still proves a mystery to academics. The reason: Dickens wrote it in complex code.
DickensCode-A.jpg

Researchers have long been trying to understand the mystery of a note known as the Tavistock letter and several other coded manuscripts by Dickens.

They have now invited the public to try to crack the puzzle — with a cash prize on offer to those who can do it.

The Tavistock letter is written in Dickens’ own modified version of an 18th century shorthand called brachygraphy, using symbols, abbreviations and acronyms — similar to modern day “textspeak”.

DickensCode-B.jpg


The researchers have set a deadline of New Year’s Eve to crack the code, with a £300 prize on offer to anyone over 18 who can either fully or partially decipher the Tavistock letter.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...2?shareToken=1752774459f95c4965a9868b45c17620

maximus otter
 
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maximus otter said:
The literary works of Charles Dickens have been translated into 150 languages and read the world over.

However, there is one body of his work which has remained unread and still proves a mystery to academics. The reason: Dickens wrote it in complex code.

Researchers have long been trying to understand the mystery of a note known as the Tavistock letter and several other coded manuscripts by Dickens.

They have now invited the public to try to crack the puzzle — with a cash prize on offer to those who can do it. ...
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You know that the people most likely to do this are age range 12-17...
 
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It just looks like made-up shorthand to me. If the shorthand originated with Dickens, then I'd be going to the other end, the person it was addressed to, as they would probably have the key to decipher it. Unless they made it up together, one of them is going to have to write it out in English to understand it.
 
I've been reading "Unsolved! The History and Mystery of hte World's Greatest Ciphers . . ." (the title is very long, so I left the rest out) by Craig P. Bauer all day, and then I see this thread. Is that a Minor Strangeness, or a Strange Coincidence?

The Dickens Tavistock letter isn't included by the way, so it's nice to see it here!
 
maximus otter said:
The literary works of Charles Dickens have been translated into 150 languages and read the world over.

However, there is one body of his work which has remained unread and still proves a mystery to academics. The reason: Dickens wrote it in complex code.

Researchers have long been trying to understand the mystery of a note known as the Tavistock letter and several other coded manuscripts by Dickens.
Click to expand...

I was surprised to see the @ symbol. I expected it would have only been a recent 'invention' but obviously not!
 
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Some symbols remind me of some of these Hebrew letters, the equivalent of what we called "Joined-Up Writing" at school, as opposed to Capital Letters.

download.jpg
 
maximus otter said:
The Tavistock letter is written in Dickens’ own modified version of an 18th century shorthand called brachygraphy, using symbols, abbreviations and acronyms — similar to modern day “textspeak”.
Click to expand...

There's a key clue in the terminology. 'Brachygraphy' is the name of a specific shorthand system (of which there were many devised and promoted from the 17th century onward) - the one invented by Thomas Gurney in 18th century England. One edition of Gurney's book on his system can be accessed at:

https://books.google.com/books?id=eYUDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false

Some of the arbitrary symbols shown on the second / last illustration in the original post above match items appearing in Gurney's book.
 
marhawkman said:
Charles Dickens's Coded Writings Are Deciphered After 150 Years
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle...ered-after-150-years/ar-AATzNI2?ocid=msedgntp
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Here's the press release from the academics who initiated the Dickens Code project in which crowd-sourced investigations cracked the Tavistock Letter's code.
The Dickens Code: Enduring mystery of Dickens shorthand letter solved with crowd-sourced research
07 February 2022

An international team of volunteers and amateur decoders have helped experts solve the enduring mystery of a letter written by celebrated novelist Charles Dickens in his own brand of adapted shorthand, which he called ‘The Devil’s Handwriting’.

Now, on Dickens’s 210th birthday, the Dickens Code project – led by Dr Claire Wood at the University of Leicester in collaboration with Professor Hugo Bowles at the University of Foggia in Italy – can reveal the true meaning behind the Tavistock Letter, written in his notoriously difficult-to-decode Brachygraphy shorthand. ...

The Dickens Code project runs to February 2023. With the help of the public, the goal is to find full or partial solutions for all of the shorthand manuscripts that are currently undeciphered, focusing on the shorthand notebooks of Dickens’s pupil, Arthur Stone, at the Free Library of Philadelphia.

Dr Wood added: “Part of what is exciting about this project is that there are still new things to discover about an internationally famous author, more than 150 years after his death. The surviving shorthand fragments may be brief, but they are nonetheless significant.

“The Tavistock Letter gives us insight into Dickens’s business dealings – the other manuscripts could include extracts from books on Dickens’s shelves, extemporised speeches, or even an unknown short story.”

Find out more at le.ac.uk/dickens-code. A range of decoding resources and more on the Tavistock Letter can be found at dickenscode.org.
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FULL STORY: https://le.ac.uk/news/2022/february/dickens-code-tavistock-letter
 
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Lb8535 said:
Do we know whether these turn out to be shopping lists or diary entries trashing his competitors or are they long enough to be new stories?
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Enh, pretty mundane, from the one snippet i saw.
 
Again, it's down to context. Pepys wrote in code, not so much to encrypt his Admiralty work as to conceal his extracurricular activities and spare social embarrassment (he had to associate with a lot of people he didn't like.)

Dickens was in exactly the same position.
 
stu neville said:
Again, it's down to context. Pepys wrote in code, not so much to encrypt his Admiralty work as to conceal his extracurricular activities and spare social embarrassment (he had to associate with a lot of people he didn't like.)

Dickens was in exactly the same position.
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yeah and writing a diary about your discourse with people who you have reason to not be seen with in public? good reason to not use plain text.
 
Their achievements are honoured.

Researchers who asked the public to help them decipher some of Charles Dickens's coded manuscripts have been honoured for their work.

The famous author wrote many notes in a personalised form of shorthand. The Dickens Code project, led by the University of Leicester's Dr Claire Wood, sought help to solve the mystery. Dr Wood has now won a Times Higher Education Award for the project, which saw more than 1,000 volunteers from across the world come forward.

The project prompted a worldwide effort by academics and the general public to decode Charles Dickens's handwritten notes. With their help, the project decoded one of his papers known as the Tavistock letter, which was written in Dickens's own brand of adapted shorthand, which he called The Devil's Handwriting.

The university, in collaboration with the University of Foggia in Italy, took home the Research Project of the Year trophy for Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at the awards.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-63680180
 
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