Cryptogram
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Literature Cryptogram Puzzles — 132 to Decode

These quotes were written to be read, not said — and it shows. Mark Twain, Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, Victor Hugo, Dickens, Swift and Austen built their sentences with clauses that balance, commas that hold a breath, and endings that land exactly where they were aimed. Encoding one changes the letters and nothing else, so all of that architecture is still standing when you arrive.

Which is why literary quotes solve differently. Punctuation survives the cipher untouched, so every comma, dash and apostrophe is free information: an apostrophe followed by a single letter is almost always S or T, and a semicolon tells you a whole second clause is coming. Shakespeare brings his own vocabulary of thou, tis and doth, and once you have met those spellings a couple of times they read as gifts rather than obstacles.

There is one more advantage, and it is not really cheating: some of these are the most famous opening lines in English. Get four or five words into one and you may find you already know how it ends — then it is just a race to prove it.

Jane Austen

PhilosophyLiterature

23 words22 letters

Very Hard
Victor Hugo

Literature

11 words16 letters

Medium
Charles Dickens

LiteratureHumor

14 words18 letters

Hard
Oscar Wilde

LiteratureHumor

9 words18 letters

Medium
Mark Twain

LiteratureHumor

15 words14 letters

Medium
Oscar Wilde

LiteratureHumor

10 words17 letters

Medium
Oscar Wilde

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

15 words17 letters

Medium
William Shakespeare

PhilosophyLiterature

17 words15 letters

Medium
Mark Twain

LiteratureHumor

12 words18 letters

Medium
Oscar Wilde

LiteratureHumor

8 words19 letters

Medium
Mark Twain

LiteratureHumor

9 words15 letters

Medium
Mark Twain

LiteratureHumor

16 words20 letters

Hard
Mark Twain

LiteratureHumor

10 words16 letters

Medium
Mark Twain

LiteratureHumor

13 words19 letters

Hard
Dorothy Parker

LiteratureHumor

19 words20 letters

Hard
Douglas Adams

LiteratureHumor

14 words17 letters

Hard
Oscar Wilde

LiteratureHumor

11 words17 letters

Medium
Laurell K. Hamilton

Literature

14 words19 letters

Hard
Mark Twain

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

11 words17 letters

Medium
Oscar Wilde

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

7 words16 letters

Medium
Oscar Wilde

LiteratureHumor

6 words16 letters

Medium
Elbert Hubbard

PhilosophyLiterature

14 words17 letters

Medium
Oscar Wilde

LiteratureHumor

17 words19 letters

Hard
Charles Dickens

Literature

12 words12 letters

Medium
Zig Ziglar

PhilosophyLiteratureBusiness

19 words19 letters

Hard
Mark Twain

LiteratureBusinessHumor

8 words13 letters

Medium
C.S. Lewis

PhilosophyLiterature

15 words16 letters

Medium
Ralph Waldo Emerson

PhilosophyLiterature

18 words19 letters

Hard
Napoleon Hill

LiteratureBusiness

8 words14 letters

Medium
Robert Collier

LiteratureBusiness

13 words17 letters

Medium
Mark Twain

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

12 words15 letters

Medium
Walt Whitman

PhilosophyLiterature

13 words19 letters

Hard
William Shakespeare

ArtLiterature

13 words15 letters

Medium
William Shakespeare

PhilosophyLiterature

10 words12 letters

Medium
William Shakespeare

Literature

9 words15 letters

Medium
A Midsummer Night's Dream

Literature

6 words13 letters

Medium
William Shakespeare

PhilosophyLiterature

12 words15 letters

Medium
William Shakespeare

LiteratureHumor

15 words19 letters

Hard
William Shakespeare

PhilosophyLiterature

9 words15 letters

Medium
William Shakespeare

PhilosophyLiterature

6 words12 letters

Medium
Julius Caesar

Literature

3 words5 letters

Easy-Medium
William Shakespeare

Literature

9 words14 letters

Medium
William Shakespeare

PhilosophyLiterature

18 words20 letters

Hard
King Lear

Literature

13 words16 letters

Medium
Richard III

Literature

9 words14 letters

Medium
William Shakespeare

PhilosophyLiterature

12 words14 letters

Medium
William Shakespeare

Literature

11 words19 letters

Hard
William Shakespeare

Literature

10 words14 letters

Medium
As You Like It

PhilosophyLiterature

17 words16 letters

Hard
Measure for Measure

PhilosophyLiterature

9 words18 letters

Medium
John Milton

PhilosophyLiterature

10 words16 letters

Medium
Absalom and Achitophel

PhilosophyLiterature

15 words18 letters

Hard
Victor Hugo

PhilosophyLiterature

9 words13 letters

Medium
Voltaire

PhilosophyLiterature

15 words19 letters

Hard
Voltaire

PhilosophyLiterature

11 words18 letters

Medium
Voltaire

PhilosophyLiterature

8 words13 letters

Medium
Voltaire

PhilosophyLiterature

7 words17 letters

Medium
Evelyn Beatrice Hall

PhilosophyLiterature

18 words19 letters

Hard
Jonathan Swift

PhilosophyLiterature

13 words16 letters

Medium
Jonathan Swift

PhilosophyArtLiterature

11 words15 letters

Medium
Jonathan Swift

PhilosophyLiterature

24 words21 letters

Very Hard
An Essay on Criticism

PhilosophyLiterature

8 words15 letters

Medium
Letters

PhilosophyLiterature

12 words19 letters

Hard
Joseph Addison

PhilosophyLiterature

11 words17 letters

Medium
Joseph Addison

PhilosophyLiterature

18 words18 letters

Hard
Joseph Addison

PhilosophyLiterature

13 words17 letters

Hard
The Crisis

PhilosophyLiterature

8 words13 letters

Medium
The Crisis

PhilosophyLiterature

9 words16 letters

Medium
Samuel Johnson

PhilosophyLiterature

18 words19 letters

Hard
Samuel Johnson

PhilosophyLiterature

16 words18 letters

Hard
Samuel Johnson

PhilosophyLiterature

15 words17 letters

Hard
The Sign of the Four

SciencePhilosophyLiterature

14 words18 letters

Hard
A Scandal in Bohemia

ScienceLiterature

7 words11 letters

Easy-Medium
The Sign of the Four

ScienceLiterature

13 words19 letters

Hard
The Crooked Man

ScienceLiterature

4 words12 letters

Medium
A Study in Scarlet

ScienceLiterature

11 words18 letters

Medium
The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone

ScienceLiterature

13 words16 letters

Medium
A Case of Identity

ScienceLiterature

8 words15 letters

Medium
The Boscombe Valley Mystery

ScienceLiterature

9 words18 letters

Medium
The Adventure of the Red Circle

SciencePhilosophyLiterature

16 words17 letters

Hard
Oscar Wilde

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

15 words17 letters

Hard
Oscar Wilde

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

21 words19 letters

Hard
Ernest Hemingway

PhilosophyLiterature

10 words14 letters

Medium
Wuthering Heights

PhilosophyLiterature

12 words16 letters

Medium
Jane Eyre

PhilosophyLiterature

19 words18 letters

Hard
Sense and Sensibility

Literature

9 words16 letters

Medium
Charles Dickens

PhilosophyLiterature

18 words15 letters

Hard
Nicholas Nickleby

Literature

12 words15 letters

Medium
David Copperfield

PhilosophyLiterature

7 words16 letters

Medium
Hard Times

PhilosophyLiterature

13 words13 letters

Medium
Victor Hugo

PhilosophyLiterature

8 words17 letters

Medium
Les Miserables

PhilosophyLiterature

11 words15 letters

Medium
Les Miserables

Literature

17 words18 letters

Hard
Les Miserables

LiteratureHumor

10 words16 letters

Medium
Les Miserables

PhilosophyLiterature

11 words14 letters

Medium
Mark Twain

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

14 words17 letters

Hard
Mark Twain

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

17 words20 letters

Hard
Mark Twain

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

10 words19 letters

Hard
George Eliot

PhilosophyLiterature

12 words17 letters

Medium
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Literature

12 words15 letters

Medium
The Fellowship of the Ring

PhilosophyLiterature

7 words11 letters

Easy-Medium
The Fellowship of the Ring

PhilosophyLiterature

16 words16 letters

Medium
The Importance of Being Earnest

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

8 words15 letters

Medium
The Road Not Taken

PhilosophyLiterature

14 words18 letters

Hard
Mother Night

PhilosophyLiterature

18 words17 letters

Hard
A Farewell to Arms

PhilosophyLiterature

13 words20 letters

Hard
Ernest Hemingway

Literature

9 words15 letters

Medium
The Phantom Tollbooth

PhilosophyLiterature

14 words20 letters

Hard
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

SciencePhilosophyLiterature

6 words13 letters

Medium
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

PhilosophyLiterature

15 words17 letters

Hard
To Kill a Mockingbird

Literature

17 words17 letters

Hard
To Kill a Mockingbird

PhilosophyLiterature

22 words20 letters

Hard
Alice in Wonderland

PhilosophyLiterature

14 words19 letters

Hard
The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Literature

9 words13 letters

Medium
Tuck Everlasting

PhilosophyLiterature

11 words16 letters

Medium
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

PhilosophyLiterature

12 words15 letters

Medium
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

SciencePhilosophyLiteratureHumor

14 words19 letters

Hard
Marthe Troly-Curtin

PhilosophyLiterature

8 words14 letters

Medium
Thomas Mann

Literature

16 words18 letters

Hard
Into the Wild

PhilosophyLiterature

6 words13 letters

Medium
1984

PhilosophyLiterature

9 words19 letters

Medium
Requiem for a Nun

PhilosophyLiterature

9 words12 letters

Medium
Mark Twain

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

13 words18 letters

Hard
Animal Farm

PhilosophyLiterature

12 words14 letters

Medium
Oscar Wilde

LiteratureHumor

8 words14 letters

Medium
Honore de Balzac

Literature

17 words17 letters

Hard
Henry David Thoreau

PhilosophyLiterature

14 words18 letters

Hard
Paulo Coelho

PhilosophyLiterature

15 words18 letters

Hard
Mark Twain

PhilosophyLiteratureHumor

43 words22 letters

Very Hard
Herman Melville

PhilosophyLiterature

12 words18 letters

Hard
C.S. Lewis

PhilosophyLiterature

19 words17 letters

Hard
Robert Louis Stevenson

PhilosophyLiterature

16 words18 letters

Hard
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