Michael Maryllian

Michael Maryllian a.k.a. Michael "Emdash" Maryllian (1841 - 1924) was an American poet born in Maryland.

History

From 1859 - 1865 he worked for a midwestern telegraph line. His poem "Telegraph road" inspired the Dire Straits to the song of the same name. In June 1860 "on a low, empty evening without telegrams" he invented a distance-based cipher which became known as Maryllian Cipher or simply "The Maryllian".

Publications

• "Telegraph road" (1860)
• "Walking across" (1861)
• "From here to nowhere" (1864)
• "The utter marble" (1866)
• "King Rathgrone & the marvels of synchronicity" (1873)
• "June Slackengridge" (1876)
• "Stone, Table and an unknown Number" (1880)
• "From the edge of everywhere" (1886)
• "Der Gurgelman Und anndere unheimlicen Geschichten" (Compilation, 1889)
• "When the devil came down to Maryland" (1891)
• "Experiments in structural compositions with some remarks about random influences from beyond" (1899)
• "New Age of Thrill, New Age of Terror" (1901)
• "In the eye of darkness" (1907)

Sources

• "Unknown heroes of the West" by Ackerman Fowler-Misdidge et al.
• "Complex Cryptography" by John Miselstone
• "Walking the Maryllian" by Emily Foster. M.A.
• "You can count on that" by Edwin D. Flitch & Nyarlath Fitzgimmons III.