The Riverbank Publications, Volume 1

The Riverbank Publications, Volume 1 gathers the first four of William F. Friedman's foundational monographs on cipher-solving, reprinted in facsimile by Aegean Park Press from pamphlets George Fabyan's Riverbank Laboratories issued between 1917 and 1922.

This volume contains Publication No. 15, A Method of Reconstructing the Primary Alphabet From a Single One of the Series of Secondary Alphabets; No. 16, Methods for the Solution of Running-Key Ciphers; No. 17, An Introduction to Methods for the Solution of Ciphers; and No. 18, Synoptic Tables for the Solution of Ciphers and a Bibliography of Cipher Literature. These were written at Riverbank's Department of Ciphers in Geneva, Illinois. The original printings were short, restricted at the time as wartime material. Friedman used them as his own textbooks when he trained American servicemen in cryptanalysis in 1917. Aegean Park Press later reissued the series as a three-volume set. This volume covers No. 15-18. A second volume reprints No. 19-21. A third reprints No. 22, The Index of Coincidence and Its Applications in Cryptography.

Friedman directed Riverbank's cipher department before moving to the War Department. There he became the US Army's chief cryptologist. He is generally regarded as the central figure in the emergence of American cryptology as a formal discipline. Elizebeth Smith Friedman, his wife and Riverbank colleague, contributed to the department's work over the same years.