Discussion of Voynich MS-related theories

[Mark Knowles]

This may not be interesting to the majority of people interested in the Voynich MS, but it is a part of history that deserves study, and is indeed studied actively by different groups.

This is not something I am capable of studying myself, but I don't see how anyone interested in the VM can dismiss this as uninteresting. Where did it go after Kircher, why did it remain hidden (or at least unnoticed), who might have corresponded about it... All matters of interest.

I suppose my approach may seem reductive and myopic, but by far and away my interest in the Voynich is in the goal of decipherment. So I always ask myself the question how unravelling a particular issue will move us on to the goal of decipherment. I can see that others may have different interests and goals. Some people are very interested in the life of Wilfred or Ethel Voynich; I am not, except in so far as knowing more about their lives can lead towards decipherment.
If by learning what happened to the manuscript after Kircher, leads to the discovery of, for example, missing documents closely associated with the Voynich such as lost letters or lost pages then it can have an impact on the goal of decipherment, otherwise it is just a historical curiousity to me personally. So if Wilfred Voynich or Professor Newbold or Hans Krauss squirrelled away missing pages of the manuscript then their lives become of significant interest to me. Without these kind of consequences I am not very interested in whether Snow White owned the manuscript after Kircher. There is so much to know and understand about the manuscript that I tend to focus quite narrowly on areas I see as profitable. However I certainly don't begrudge anyone of their interests whether it be the Voynich manuscript or Ping Pong.