The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[proto57]

I don't know the historical details, so I have a question.
Anne Nill was Wilfried's secretary. She certainly had direct access to the VM manuscript.
Anne Nill also worked on the VM.
Although she was in close contact with the book and Wilfried.
Why did she work on the book? Wouldn't Wilfried have told her that it was pointless, or shouldn't she have realised that herself? Why her work?

Hi Aga: Only Anne could answer that completely, but from seeing her notes, and reading her letters... and looking at the overall situation, I would say it was a combination of curiosity (as all of us have for the Voynich) and a hope for a sale of the manuscript. It was and is historically difficult to sell an unidentified anything, of course. And I think it was clear after Wilfrid died that the real hope for a good retirement for Anne and Ethel would heavily depend on the sale of the Voynich. Well, and also the 1475 "Valturious" manuscript, which they also felt was worth a great deal of money.

The two of them were very close, she was not simply Ethel's employee. They lived together and clearly cared about each other. I've read all the letters in all the Voynich archives, at the Beinecke and the Grolier Club at least, and the above are the impressions I came to... which are I think were already shared by many.

Money was an ongoing issue for Anne and Ethel. A sale of the "Bacon Cipher Ms." would have set them for life. The modern equivalent of the money they wanted for it would be between one and two million dollars, today. I've written a basic outline of the issues these women faced in my blog post, "Anne Nill Speaks": You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

It is not a forgery-centric post, it is for anyone interested in the questions you brought up. You can read Anne's thoughts on the Voynich, its value, and how she and Ethel viewed issues about money, settling Wilfrid's will, and how to deal with the stock of the London office, which they were shutting down.

Rich