A review of Voynich Reconsidered, in Fortean Times, July 2025:
"Voynich Reconsidered is an analytical tour de force. Even though the details can overwhelm, its good ordinary prose, splendid colour layouts and umpteen tables of correspondences are mesmerisingly focused. The studies of earlier attempts at decipherment, and new ones of the author’s own avenues, which seem promising, are cogently presented.
The product of five scribes working for some uber-inscrutable purpose, the Voynich Manuscript, cryptography’s holy mountain, is an outlier. At first appearing quite accessible with its dreamlike illustrations of plants, female bathers, peculiar apparatus, we get the gist – sort of. Then there’s the… they are words, aren’t they? The text looks decipherable… right? Unknown, for these apparently simple concepts are stress-tested to their limits with deciphering efforts.
Is the Voynich an alchemical or magical grimoire or a medical manual? Poem or pharmaceutical? Or some combination? Why do its “letters” and “words” look so much like bits of known languages that don’t stack up to complete phrases? The lack of punctuation doesn’t help one bit.
The author suggests some of it corresponds to particular ancient Balkan languages, that is, if indeed it really isn’t utter gibberish, a hoax; a possibility ruled out by Edwards with “some degree of confidence”. The only Voynich conference sponsored by an academic institution, in 2022, generally favoured the opinion that the Voynich text is meaningful.
The producer must have been wealthy, an aristocrat or high clerical official. Someone who may, Edwards admits, have had “a colossal sense of humour”."
Rating: 5 stars.
"Voynich Reconsidered is an analytical tour de force. Even though the details can overwhelm, its good ordinary prose, splendid colour layouts and umpteen tables of correspondences are mesmerisingly focused. The studies of earlier attempts at decipherment, and new ones of the author’s own avenues, which seem promising, are cogently presented.
The product of five scribes working for some uber-inscrutable purpose, the Voynich Manuscript, cryptography’s holy mountain, is an outlier. At first appearing quite accessible with its dreamlike illustrations of plants, female bathers, peculiar apparatus, we get the gist – sort of. Then there’s the… they are words, aren’t they? The text looks decipherable… right? Unknown, for these apparently simple concepts are stress-tested to their limits with deciphering efforts.
Is the Voynich an alchemical or magical grimoire or a medical manual? Poem or pharmaceutical? Or some combination? Why do its “letters” and “words” look so much like bits of known languages that don’t stack up to complete phrases? The lack of punctuation doesn’t help one bit.
The author suggests some of it corresponds to particular ancient Balkan languages, that is, if indeed it really isn’t utter gibberish, a hoax; a possibility ruled out by Edwards with “some degree of confidence”. The only Voynich conference sponsored by an academic institution, in 2022, generally favoured the opinion that the Voynich text is meaningful.
The producer must have been wealthy, an aristocrat or high clerical official. Someone who may, Edwards admits, have had “a colossal sense of humour”."
Rating: 5 stars.