Article 21 of alt.necromicon:
Newsgroups: alt.necromicon,alt.horror.cthulhu
From: [j--a--z] at [riesz.mit.edu] (John C. Baez)
Subject: Re: Necronomicon FAQ
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 92 22:04:52 GMT

As we all know, the REAL Necronomicon is the Voynich manuscript, found
in a trunk in a Jesuit library... bought by the Emperor Rudolph for 500
gold ducats... etc..

Here's how to get information about the Voynich Manuscript.  What
follows was my handout for a talk at MIT so some of the information is
only interesting to people in Cambridge.

 The Voynich Manuscript

1. The actual manuscript is in the Beinecke Rare Book Library,
associated with Yale University.   A copy may be purchased for \$40 by
contacting Robert Babcock at 203-432-2977. Warning: this is not
for the impatient. 
2.  Parts of the manuscript were transcribed by Mary D'Imperio
and are available by anonymous ftp at:

Host:  rand.org  (192.5.14.33)

Directory:    pub/jim

File:  voynich.tar.Z


Get the file ReadMe.dir for a list of other interesting files and
software in this directory, including Voynich fonts for the PC.

3. A Voynich bibliography is available by anonymous ftp as
above; it's the file biblio.  I especially suggest the following:

Author:    D'Imperio, Mary  E.

Title:      The Voynich Manuscript: an Elegant Enigma 

Publisher:  Fort George E. Mead, Md.: National Security
Agency/Central Security Service, 1978. ix, 140 pp.


This book is by far the best work on the subject.  It is a
bit hard to get a copy.  There is a copy in Widener Library, at
Harvard; the book has also been reprinted by Aegean Park Press, P.\ O.\
Box 2837, Laguna Hills CA 92654-0837, phone \# 1-800-736-3587.  It is
out of print but they will sell velo-bound xerox copies.  

The MIT library (Hayden) has a copy of the following:

Editor:    Brumbaugh, Robert Sherrick

Title:    The Most Mysterious Manuscript: the Voynich
``Roger Bacon" Cipher Manuscript

Publisher:   Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, c1978. xii, 175 pp.
  

The call number at MIT is Z104.M67.  This book is a collection of essays
on the Voynich interspersed with the authors own claimed decoding of
the Voynich.  Warning: his solution is not likely to be correct,
and should be taken with a big grain of salt.  But at least it has lots
of pictures of the actual text, with its weird script and illustrations.

4. The Voynich Group is an international team of people
working on the problem.  One can subscribe to a mailing list for
discussing the Voynich by sending email to

\hskip 2em [voynich request] at [rand.org]

A large file of discussion can be obtained by
anonymous ftp from rand.org (see above); this file is 
pub/jim/digest.  Questions and (even better) reports on any
analyses you do on the Voynich are welcome!  (Serious stuff only.)