Author Description

The discovery of the existence of the Bi-literal Cipher of Francis Bacon, found embodied in his works, and the deciphering of what it tells, has been a work arduous, exhausting and prolonged. It is not ended, but the results of the work so far brought forth, are submitted for study and discussion, and open a new and large field of investigation and research, which cannot fail to interest all students of the earlier literature that has come down to us as a mirror of the past, and in many respects has been adopted as models for the present. Seeking for things hidden, the mysterious, elusive and unexpected, has a fascination for many minds, as it has for my own, and this often prompts to greater effort than more manifest and material things would command. To this may be attributed, perhaps, the triumph over difficulties which have seemed to me, at times, insurmountable, the solution of problems, and the following of ways tortuous and obscure, which have been necessary to bring out, as they appear in the following pages, the hidden messages which Francis Bacon so securely buried in his writings, that three hundred years of reading and close study have not until now uncovered them. This Bi-literal Cipher is found in the Italic letters that appear in such unusual and unexplained prodigality in the original editions of Bacon’s works. Students of these old editions have been impressed with the extraordinary number of words and passages, often non-important, printed in Italics, where no known rule of construction would require their use. There has been no reasonable explanation of this until now it is found that they were so used for the purposes of this Cipher. These letters are seen to be in two forms — two fonts of type — with marked differences. In the Capitals these are easily discerned, but the distinguishing features in the small letters, from age of the books, blots and poor printing, have been more difficult to classify, and close examination and study have been req