Vigenère cipher was misattributed to Vigenère. David Kahn, in his book, "The Codebreakers" lamented the misattribution by saying that history had "ignored this important contribution and instead named a regressive and elementary cipher for him [Vigenère] though he had nothing to do with it". The Vigenère cipher gained a reputation for being exceptionally strong. Noted author and mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) called the Vigenère cipher unbreakable in his 1868 piece "The Alphabet Cipher" in a children's magazine. In 1917, "Scientific American" described the Vigenère cipher as "impossible of translation". That reputation was not deserved. Charles Babbage is known to have
Campbell Dodgson the War Office; his 1918 CBE was a recognition of this work (DNB, 1941-50 : 216). He was the editor, in the 1920s, of "The Print Collector’s Quarterly". He was also a contributor to the "Burlington Magazine" and to the Dictionary of National Biography. Dodgson married Frances Catherine Spooner, daughter of William Archibald Spooner (Warden of New College and the eponymous author of 'Spoonerisms'), in 1913 (DNB, 1941-50 : 216). Dodgson gave generously to the British Museum during his Keepership, but at the same time amassed a very large collection of over 5,000 prints which he bequeathed to the Museum.