The First Book of Codes and Ciphers

An introductory primer on codes and ciphers for young readers, published in 1956 as part of Franklin Watts's "First Book" series, with drawings by Laszlo Roth. It opens by distinguishing the two methods of secret writing it covers throughout: a code, which substitutes symbols for whole words or phrases, and a cipher, which substitutes symbols for individual letters.

Short chapters move from a reader's first attempt at a simple substitution code through the Caesar cipher, a backward cipher, and a cipher the authors identify in the Bible. Later chapters cover number ciphers, the semaphore and Morse codes, the ogam script of the Celts, and the breaking of a Spanish king's cipher. Others take up the Rosetta Stone, invisible inks, business codes, and codes used in detective fiction. The book closes with an answer key and index. Contemporary listings describe it as issued in gray buckram boards with the title lettered on the spine and front board.

Sam and Beryl Epstein were a husband-and-wife writing team. From 1938 onward they published more than 120 children's nonfiction titles and biographies together, including many entries in Franklin Watts's First Book series. Under several joint pseudonyms they also wrote the Ken Holt mystery series.