The 19th century puzzle sent to US author Edgar Allen Poe

Edgar Allen Poe was a man who loved his puzzles. Photo / AP

The following code, or cipher, was sent to the legendary American author and puzzle-lover Edgar Allen Poe by 17-year-old Schuyler Colfax, who went on to be equally renowned in different circles.

In fact, Schuyler was the 17th vice president of the United States. He opposed slavery (pretty cool at the time) and once toyed with joining the 'Know Nothing Party'.

It's a weird name for a political party, but it used to meet secretly and when people were asked if they were members, they were expected to answer 'I know nothing'. The name stuck!

Anyway, this code looks absolutely awful at first, but see if you can translate the 21 different letters, numbers and symbols into letters to give a phrase.

There are no unusual words in the answer, but given that the puzzle was set in 1840, I should warn you that the language is fairly 'formal'.

As another hint, two of the letters stand for themselves and the semicolon ';' and the full stop are actually themselves as pieces of punctuation. Are you ready? Like I said, it looks hideous!

8n{}58†d w!0 b† !x6n†z k65 !nz k65,8l†n b}x 8nd}Pxd !zw8x 6k n6 36w-†nd!x86n;

x=†0 z†,5!z† x=† w8nz 8n 8xd 62n †dx††w !nz k653† 8x x6 5†36l†5 8xd P†l†P b0 5†l†n,†.

{}n8}d

HINT:

This is a pretty tough question. If you're tearing your hair out, a logical approach will help you bust this open.

Firstly, go through and make a list of each symbol (letter, number or punctuation mark) and write down how many times they occur. Then think about which letters occur most commonly in English (or look up a list if you want).

There is one symbol which clearly occurs the most often and a six-letter word in the cipher in which this symbol occurs three times including in a double. What word could that possibly be? Go from there — and don't forget the language has an 1840s sophisticated feel to it.

Answer:

The most common symbols in our code and the number of times they occur are † (20), n (14), 8 and × (12), 6 (11), d and 5 (eight) and z and ! (seven times each).

The most common letters in English change depending on which list you're looking at, but E is always first, and A R I O T N S seem to be the next bunch. This means † could very well be E.

When I first saw this puzzle the word †dx††w looked like 'esteem' to me, and I went from there. If that's the case then 8xd occurs twice as does 8x, suggesting 8 = I giving ITS and IT. x6 is possibly TO giving 6 = 0. The word 8nd)Pxd is now I_S_ _ TS and the only word I could see was INSULTS. A bit more plugging away and we come up with the quote:

Injuries may be atoned for and forgiven but insults admit of no compensation;

they degrade the mind in its own esteem and force it to recover its level by revenge.

Junius

Adam Spencer's book The Number Games is available at www.adamspencer.com.au. Note: Shipping is not available to NZ.