Thanks are due always to that prince among agents and wisest of counsellors, Anthony Goff. At Simon & Schuster, I am blessed in the enthusiasm and support of my dear chief editor, the wonderful Suzanne Baboneau. I owe much to the patience and input of Karl French (structural editor), Jo Whitford (senior project editor) and Liane Payne (for her beautiful maps and family trees). Sue Stephens is the sort of publicist that writers dream about (in a very good way). Douglas Matthews remains – always – the most thoughtful and satisfying of indexers.
Despite such generous help, work in such a controversial field is bound to result in errors and questionable assertions (I’m thinking of the tricky question about which of Babbage’s private discussions in 1834 relate to Difference Engine 2 and which to the Analytical Engine). All such faults and misconceptions are of my own making.
At home, thanks to my son Merlin Sinclair for mathematical input, and Talia and Shira Sinclair, two of Ada Lovelace’s most ardent admirers. A significant part of Lovelace’s fanbase comprises young girls who admire her spirit and achievement. May you all grow up to have Ada’s intelligence, imagination and perseverance, with none of her problems.
Last, my greatest debt is to Ted Lynch, the morale-booster, unflagging enthusiast and patient co-editor who helped to shape and clarify my first draft. Without you at my side and on my side, my dearest Ted, this long-planned book would not be here.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
While the list given here by no means represents everything I have read, it offers guidance to anybody keen to pursue any of the multiple strands in the story.
I would especially recommend anybody interested in Ada to seek out on YouTube The Ada Project by Conrad Shawcross, RA, which uses a hacked assembly line industrial robot to evoke the questing spirit of a remarkable young woman.
Books and articles relating to Annabella Milbanke, Lady Noel Byron
Beecher Stowe, Harriet, ‘The True Story of Lady Byron’s Life’ in Macmillan’s Magazine (UK) and Atlantic Monthly (US), September, 1869.
—Lady Byron Vindicated (London, Sampson Low & Son, 1870).
Blessington, Marguerite, Countess of, Conversations of Lord Byron (London, H. Colburn, 1834).
Crane, David, The Kindness of Sisters: Annabella Milbanke and the Destruction of the Byrons (London, HarperCollins, 2012).
Elwin, Malcolm, Lord Byron’s Wife (London, Macdonald, 1962).
—The Noels and the Milbankes (London, Macdonald, 1962).
—Lord Byron’s Family (London, John Murray, 1975). Completed by a second hand.
Fox, John, The Vindication of Lady Byron (London, R. Bentley, 1871). Largely comprising a series of essays published in Temple Bar, with added text.
Fox, Sir John, Byron, A Mystery (London, Grant Richards, 1924). Written by the approving son of the above author, with assistance from Mary, Countess of Lovelace.
Graham, T. Austin, ‘The Slaveries of Sex, Race and Mind: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Lady Byron Vindicated” ’, New Literary History, vol. 41, no. 1 (Winter 2010), pp. 173–90.
Gross, J. D., Byron’s ‘Corbeau Blanc’: The Life and Letters of Lady Melbourne (Texas, Rice University Press, 1997).
Guiccioli, Teresa, Marquis de Boissy, Témoins, translated as My Recollections of Lord Byron (London, R. Bentley, 1869). Worth seeking out for the influential and damaging chapter devoted to Byron’s marriage.
Lovelace, Ralph, Lady Noel Byron and the Leighs (private circulation, 1887).
—Astarte: A fragment of truth concerning George Gordon Byron, Sixth Lord Byron, recorded by his grandson (London, Christophers, 1905, 1921).
Markus, Julia, Lady Byron and Her Daughters (New York, W. W. Norton, 2015).
Mayne, Ethel Colburn, The Life and Letters of Anne Isabella, Lady Noel Byron (London, Charles Scribner, 1929).
Murray, John and Rowland Prothero, Lord Byron and His Detractors (London, private circulation, 1906).
Pierson, Joan, The Real Lady Byron (London, Robert Hale, 1992). Includes a useful section about the Noel family.
Taylor, Brian W., ‘Annabella, Lady Noel-Byron: A Study of Lady Byron on Education’, History of Education Quarterly vol. 38, no. 4 (1998), pp. 430–55.
Books, music, articles and online material relating to Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace
Babbage, Charles and Ada Lovelace, Sketch of the Analytical Machine Invented by Charles Babbage with notes by the translator, extracted from Scientific Memoirs (London, R. and J. E. Taylor, 1843).
Brailsford, David, Babbage’s Analytical Engine, YouTube, https://youtu.be/5rtKoKFGFSM. All of Professor Brailsford’s online lectures about Babbage are invaluably lucid and lively.
Essinger, James, A Female Genius: How Ada Lovelace Lord Byron’s Daughter Started the Computer Age (London, Gibson Square, 2014).
Ferry, Georgina, ‘Ada Lovelace: In search of a “calculus of the nervous system” ’, The Lancet, vol. 386 (2015).
Hammerman, Robin and Andrew L. Russell, Ada’s Legacy (Vermont, Morgan & Claypool, 2015).
Howard, Emily, The Lovelace Trilogy, opera (2011).
Lethbridge, Lucy, Ada Lovelace: Computer Wizard Of Victorian England (London, Short Books, 2001). For younger readers, not wholly accurate but a great place to start, together with Sydney Padua.
MacFarlane, Alistair, ‘Alistair MacFarlane on the first-ever programmer: Ada Lovelace’, Philosophy Now, issue 96 (2013).
Martin, Ursula has headed and written some of the most insightful recent explorations of Ada Lovelace’s work as a mathematician. Some can be found online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17498430.2017.1325297
Moore, Doris Langley, Ada, Countess of Lovelace, Byron’s Legitimate Daughter (London, John Murray, 1977).
Padua, Sydney, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage (London, Particular Books, 2015).
Spufford, Francis and Jenny Uglow (eds), Cultural Babbage: Technology, Time and Invention (London, Faber & Faber, 1996).
Stein, Dorothy, Ada: A Life and Legacy (New York, MIT Press, 1985).
Swade, Doron, The Cogwheel Brain: Charles Babbage and the Quest to Build the First Computer (London, Little, Brown, 2000). Doron Swade masterminded the Science Museum model of Babbage’s calculating engine, comprising 8,000 parts, completed in 2002.
Toole, Betty A., Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from
