Selected Special Collections

George Fabyan Collection

Early editions of works of seventeenth-century English literature, publications relating to cryptography

George Fabyan (1867-1936), a member of Chicago Stock Exchange and founder of Riverbank Laboratories in Geneva, Illinois, was a accomplished cryptographer. During World War I he trained army intelligence officers in deciphering codes, winning the French Legion of Honor for his efforts. One of his areas of specialty was the Shakespeare-Bacon authorship controversy, and he published writings on principles of Baconian ciphers and their application in sixteenth and seventeenth-century books. The Cryptographer's research collection was received by the Library of Congress in 1940 through his bequest. The Fabyan Collection incorporates the Francis Bacon material assembled by John Dane of Boston and includes thirty-three distinct editions of Bacon's works published between 1597 and 1640. In addition to many volumes of seventeenth-century English literature, the collections contains early cryptographic texts such as Johannes Triteness' Polygraphiae Libri Sex, present in the first edition (1518) and seven subsequent printings. The collection numbers approximately seven 1,550 volumes.