Shakespeare Cryptograms
Every Shakespeare quote in the collection, encoded fresh for print. Each answer page carries the year and the source we verified the wording from.
Nine lines written between 1597 and 1604 — the stretch that runs from Romeo and Juliet through As You Like It, Hamlet and Othello. We chose lines that stand up on their own without the scene around them, and that use words still in ordinary use, so nothing here turns on a word that has changed meaning in four hundred years. The spelling is modernised, as it is in every edition you would buy today.
Verse gives you something prose does not: the line lengths are regular, and Shakespeare repeats function words hard — that, but, is, so, nothing — which shows up as the same short shape appearing three or four times in one puzzle. Start there. The contractions are also useful, since an apostrophe followed by one letter in this period is almost always a dropped vowel or a T.
An English class, a reading group, or a rainy afternoon for somebody who once knew these lines by heart and would enjoy meeting them sideways. Each answer carries the play and the year.
This section: 9 quotations, written between 1597 and 1604, 41 to 72 letters long, graded easy / medium / hard / expert. Voices you will meet: William Shakespeare.
The 2 sheets
Every sheet prints on US Letter with half-inch margins, gives you a blank line under each cipher letter, and keeps the answer key on its own page so nothing is spoiled while you work.