" . . . growth of a form of encodement that went beyond even a sophisticated substitution cipher. This landmark of cryptography, apparently devised by the Jesuit polymath Athanasius Kircher as part of a peace initiative whereby princes could communicate with each other securely, reduced all languages to one language by matching key Latin words and phrases to a numerically coded lexicon. This allowed a message to be decoded in any one of five languages. Here, in embryonic form, are the elements of a modern code system and the first small steps on the path that has brought us to the device on which I type this review. https://literaryreview.co.uk/our-man-in-fotheringhay