04-08-2019, 05:33 PM
I ran into some remarkable examples of this myself. Fortunately, I suppose, the confirmation came too late and I had already abandoned the idea. But it's worth explaining.
Back in the days where we had only the MS and the Marci letter, and nothing particular about the Prague history was known, I had my own 'Voynich faked it' theory. It was based on a spy novel, and ran as follows:
Voynich never escaped from his Siberian exile. He died there and the person who arrived in London was a Russian spy. The purpose of the Voynich MS, produced by Russian intelligence, was to side-track or occupy Western cryptographic agencies. When Voynich became rich and successful, he became a risk, so Anne Nill was put beside him as a secon plant to keep him under control.
Of course, lots of new evidence appeared and pieces started falling into place, and the fake theory could not explain things anymore.
But then, at some point I was reading in Millicent Sowerby, who worked for Voynich in London how amazed she was, when she first met Anne Nill, how much control she had over Wilfrid Voynich. Isn't that curious?
Even 'worse', in 2012, Rafal in his presentation at the Villa Mondragone showed that Voynich was:
- last seen in Siberia (Irkutsk) on 12 June 1890
- arrived in London on a ship from Hamburg 5 October 1890 (i.e. 115 days later)
He claimed to have wandered through the desert for months. However Rafal also pointed out that the fastest boat trip from Shanghai to London was of the order of 110 days. There is no way that he could have travelled from Irkutsk to Shanghai and then to London.
What better proof could there be of my spy story?
(In the end we know he took the train through Russia, thanks to research by Gerry Kennedy).
Back in the days where we had only the MS and the Marci letter, and nothing particular about the Prague history was known, I had my own 'Voynich faked it' theory. It was based on a spy novel, and ran as follows:
Voynich never escaped from his Siberian exile. He died there and the person who arrived in London was a Russian spy. The purpose of the Voynich MS, produced by Russian intelligence, was to side-track or occupy Western cryptographic agencies. When Voynich became rich and successful, he became a risk, so Anne Nill was put beside him as a secon plant to keep him under control.
Of course, lots of new evidence appeared and pieces started falling into place, and the fake theory could not explain things anymore.
But then, at some point I was reading in Millicent Sowerby, who worked for Voynich in London how amazed she was, when she first met Anne Nill, how much control she had over Wilfrid Voynich. Isn't that curious?
Even 'worse', in 2012, Rafal in his presentation at the Villa Mondragone showed that Voynich was:
- last seen in Siberia (Irkutsk) on 12 June 1890
- arrived in London on a ship from Hamburg 5 October 1890 (i.e. 115 days later)
He claimed to have wandered through the desert for months. However Rafal also pointed out that the fastest boat trip from Shanghai to London was of the order of 110 days. There is no way that he could have travelled from Irkutsk to Shanghai and then to London.
What better proof could there be of my spy story?
(In the end we know he took the train through Russia, thanks to research by Gerry Kennedy).