Bacon's cipher

Bacon's cipher or the Baconian cipher is a method of steganography (a method of hiding a secret message as opposed to a true cipher) devised by Francis Bacon. A message is concealed in the presentation of text, rather than its content.
In a number of cases the use of multiple fonts etc is an accident of the document's construction/what was available to the printer rather than an actual intent to hide information.
==Bacon and Shakespeare==
Some people have suggested that the plays attributed to William Shakespeare were in fact written by Francis Bacon, and that the published plays contain enciphered messages to that effect. Both Ignatius L. Donnelly and Elizabeth Wells Gallup attempted to find such messages by looking for the use of Bacon's cipher in early printed editions of the plays.
However, American William and Elizebeth Friedman refuted the claims that the works of Shakespeare contain hidden ciphers that disclose Bacon's or any other candidate's secret authorship in their The Shakespeare Ciphers Examined (1957).
More information on the Wikipedia page ; the Cornell University page is and there are many other websites.
Category:Ciphers
Category:William Shakespeare articles