I discovered the Voynich Manuscript sometime last year, and since then have been intrigued by it, both its text and illustrations.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy to review! It's still an excellent introduction to the Voynich Manuscript for anyone is is interested in learning about the basics.
I do wish that there would have been annotations throughout-it would have made this a truly indispensable work then. While these diagrams can get a bit confusing when it comes to the fold out pages, I still thought it was a nice touch. I did love that each page was accompanied by a small diagram of the quarto that it's a part of. This is also something that lends itself almost solely to a print edition, as a digital copy doesn't lend itself very well to casually flipping through it. I do hope it's clearer in the print edition. I did find the quality of these photos to be somewhat blurry however, I'm not sure if this was due to this being an ARC, my screen resolution, the fact that the manuscript is quite old, or a mixture of the above. The majority of the book, of course, consists of the photographs/scans of the entire manuscript itself. I wanted to read this for the introductory material to the manuscript, as I just wanted a general overview history at the moment, and it this definitely met the criteria! The foreword and introduction, all by scholars who have extensively studied the Voynich Manuscript, provide a succinct breakdown what the manuscript possibly is, its provenance and decipherment attempts, and prominent highlights of the manuscript's content. The majority of the book, of course, co 3 stars for the intro & foreword.