Blog

Blog

Chinnery shorthand: Some snakes and ladders

Our Chinnery summer transcription is proving something of a ‘staggerer’. In a second guest blog, V&A research fellow Patrick Conner provides some help, explaining how Chinnery used shorthand in his sketches, as well as recurring phrases and signs and potential pitfalls.

Past challenges

Chinnery Summer Transcription Challenge

This summer, we’re taking a break from decoding Dickens and turning attention to another user of the Gurney shorthand system: the artist George Chinnery (1774-1852). Can you crack Chinnery’s shorthand annotations?
Deadline: 15 September 2023.

Blog

Charles Dickens, George Chinnery, and Gurney shorthand

What did Charles Dickens and the artist George Chinnery have in common? Both were practitioners of Gurney’s Brachygraphy shorthand. Find out more about what connects these two fascinating figures in a guest blog by Patrick Conner.

Blog

Letter to Bentley progress

May’s ‘Letter to Bentley’ shorthand decoding challenge turned out to be the trickiest yet. Find out more about our progress here…

Media

Media

For media enquiries please visit our ‘Contact’ page. Cracking the Dickens Code is a story that caught the world’s imagination. The ‘Tavistock’ letter discovery, made thanks to the efforts of the Dickens Decoders, has featured on ITV News at Ten…

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Blog

‘Didactic’ transcript

‘Didactic’ has turned out to be a short piece criticising Rome and commenting on Catholicism in terms similar to Dickens’s ‘Pictures from Italy’ (1846). Download a transcript here.

Past challenges

Easter ‘Nonsense’ Challenge

Can you help us complete transcription of Arthur Stone’s Notebook A? This time the sentences may not be connected to one another, so we’ll need to treat them as separate items. Download an entry form here and give it a go!
Deadline: 30 April 2023