Introduction

I first heard of the Codex Seraphinianus when a link was posted on a message board I used to regularly visit. The page featured an assortment of surreal images that whilst being somewhat alien were also recognisably Earthly, in a similar way that a medieval drawing of an exotic animal, sketched by eyes who had never left his home county, yet alone travelled abroad is utterly wrong, yet easily recognisable.

I scoured Google, and found an assortment of other sites that talked about the book. I soon discovered that it's written in a strange language using a totally alien writing system, and there is much debate whether the text has a meaning at all, or if it is just purely decorative, to give the feel of it being a real book.

However, attempts to get hold of a real copy of the book were in vain. It's been out of print for decades, and the copies that do change hands online go for hundreds of pounds, so it got added to a mental list of things I'd like to get hold of someday, and was promptly forgotten about.

About a year later, I was talking with my Fiancee's Mother (who at the time worked at a local library) and somehow got onto the subject of searching for books. The Codex suddenly sprang back to mind as a book ideal for her to hunt down, so a few weeks later I had my hands on a copy of the book all the way from the British Library!

It takes the structure of an encylopaedia, and appears to have been written by an alien traveller visiting a strange world (or perhaps an alien trying to make sense of the descriptions of a strange world that have been relayed back to him.)

This study of mine is is a work in progress - I will keep going back and adding more details as I notice things (and presently a good few chapters are yet to have anything written in them at all.) Any changes or updates I make will be listed on the updates page.