Concept
A cryptogram is a type of puzzle that consists of a short piece of encrypted text. Generally the cipher used to encrypt the text is simple enough that the cryptogram can be solved by hand. Substitution ciphers where each letter is replaced by a different letter or number are frequently used. To solve the puzzle, one must recover the original lettering. Though once used in more serious applications, they are now mainly printed for entertainment in newspapers and magazines. Other types of classical ciphers are sometimes used to create cryptograms. An example is the book cipher where a book or article is used to encrypt a message. The ciphers used in cryptograms were not originally created for entertainment purposes, but for real encryption of military or personal secrets. The first use of the cryptogram for entertainment purposes occurred during the Middle Ages by monks who had spare time for intellectual games. A manuscript found at Bamberg states that Irish visitors to the court of Merfyn Frych ap Gwriad (died 844), king of Gwynedd in Wales were given a cryptogram which could only be solved by transposing the letters from Latin into Greek. Around the thirteenth century, the English monk Roger Bacon wrote a book in which he listed seven cipher methods, and stated that "a man is crazy who writes a secret in any other way than one which will conceal it from the vulgar." In the 19th century Edgar Allan Poe helped to popularize cryptograms with many newspaper and magazine articles. Well-known examples of cryptograms in contemporary culture are the syndicated newspaper puzzles Cryptoquip and Cryptoquote, from King Features. And Celebrity Cipher, distributed by Andrew McMeel, is another captivating cipher game in contemporary culture, offering a stimulating challenge by decrypting quotes from famous personalities. In a public challenge, writer J.M. Appel announced on September 28, 2014, that the table of contents page of his short story collection, Scouting for the Reaper, also doubled as a cryptogram, and he pledged an award for the first to solve it.
