‘I thought of the words “conceived in sin” ’: Florence Nightingale to her sister, Parthenope, Monday, dated by editor as ‘after 29 November, 1852’. Lynn McDonald (ed.), Florence Nightingale on Society and Politics, Philosophy, Science, Education and Literature (2003), vol. 5, pp. 759–62, in Collected Works of Florence Nightingale, 16 vols. (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000–2012). Florence appears to have believed that Ada had inherited syphilis.
‘they may be most thankful they have Mrs Clark there to depend on’: ibid.
The earl was willing to become as wax in her hands: Woronzow Grieg, draft letter to AINB, 2 December 1852, MSBY Dep c. 367, folder MSBY-6.
Annabella did not resist the opportunity to remind her son-in-law of the ‘unlimited confidence’ he had formerly expressed: AINB to WL, 16 December 1852, Dep. Lovelace Byron 59, fols. 338–40.
‘every cherished conviction of my married life has been unsettled’: WL to AINB, 17 December 1852, DLM transcript.
‘an additional act of treachery’: Woronzow Grieg to SL, 9 February 1853, Dep. Lovelace Byron 90, fols. 36–7.
while he himself had ‘fairly broken down under the part which I have taken’: Woronzow Greig to WL, 26 February, 1853, Dep. Lovelace Byron 171.
‘Can she desire to force us into Court?’: Woronzow Greig to SL, 2 April 1853, Dep. Lovelace Byron 90, fols. 38–9.
a man entirely ‘destitute of honour and principle’: Woronzow Greig to WL, 14 April 1853, Dep. Lovelace Byron 171.
They did not even care to allow him the coroneted and monogrammed gold pencil case: Ada’s bequest to John Crosse, Dep. Lovelace Byron 175, fol. 161.
In 1880, John’s son and namesake would inherit from his father a gold ring: Information about John Crosse’s later life is gratefully taken from Brian Wright, Andrew Crosse and the Mite that Shocked the World (Matador, 2015).
‘full of much bitter vituperation, and containing a reflection upon her so malignant that I cannot describe it’: AINB to Woronzow Greig, 9 March 1853, MSBY Dep c. 367 folder MSBY-4.
Rumours (she wrote) might have reached the Somervilles: AINB to Mary Somerville, 9 March 1853, MSBY Dep c. 367, folder MSBY-1.
‘there was so much feeling in both his words and manner’: Henry Hope Reed to Alexander Bache (n.d. 1854). The letter appeared in The Southern Review, 1867. Extracts are published in Appendix 1 of Sydney Padua, The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage (Particular Books, 2015). Professor Reed drowned on the steamship Arctic while returning to America from Europe in September 1854.
Lady Byron remarked that, while chilled by Mrs Jameson’s ‘persistent attacks’: AINB to Anna Jameson, 13 February 1854, HRC, Byron O/S box 14.
she herself could no longer bear to see ‘any friend who reminds me of her’: Gerardine Macpherson, Memoir of the Life of Anna Jameson (Roberts Bros, 1878), pp. 281–3.
Nevertheless, the letter-writer was permitted to state that her grandmother would contribute £50: AINK to Susan Zilari, 3 May, 1859–60, HRC, Byron box 6.3.
Chapter Twenty-four: Enshrinement (1853–60)
‘I am so happy this evening’: AINB to AAL, 30 November 1844, Dep. Lovelace Byron 55.
The visits paid by Annabella to her grandmother’s airy Brighton home each spring: AINK to AINB, n.d., WP, Add MS 54093.
‘To this I cannot consent’: AINB to Arthur Mair, 15 August 1857, HRC, bound vol. 1 of the Byron Collection.
By the spring of 1855, after working his way back to England: Byron Ockham’s obscure movements can be partially tracked by reading the letters about him to AINB from his always concerned and affectionate sister (WP, Add MS 54093).
‘I was much pleased with Lady Byron,’ the savvy old gentleman noted that night: Henry Crabb Robinson, 17 September 1853, in T. Sadler (ed.) Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of H. C. Robinson 2 vols. (Macmillan, 1869); London Review, xxxiii, October 1869 – January 1870, p. 326 (in a review of the above mentioned book).
‘now or never will he form desirable connections’: AINB to Louisa (Mrs Robert) Noel, 26 June 1855, Dep. Lovelace Byron 103, fols. 99–211.
‘When socially disposed, you will invite yourself’: AINB to George and Louisa MacDonald, 1856, Joan Pierson, The Real Lady Byron (Robert Hale, 1992), p. 297. It was another friend, Thomas Carlyle, who provided the name ‘Liberty Hall’ for Annabella’s Irish style of hospitality.
Crabb Robinson, encountering the couple there during the following spring, was impressed: H. C. Robinson, 16 April 1859, in Sadler, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 396.
‘the most intelligent-looking negro I ever saw’: H. C. Robinson, 24 May 1853, ibid., p.340.
‘Many of her words surprised me greatly, and gave me new material for thought’: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lady Byron Vindicated, or a History of the Byron Controversy (Sampson Low, Son & Marston, 1870) Pt. 2, Ch. 1.
On the second, their schoolboy son Henry was introduced to Byron Ockham: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s views are paraphrased from the account she provided in Lady Byron Vindicated, pp. 145–6.
And what, a pale-faced and emotional Lady Byron asked at the end of her enthralling monologue, should she do now?: ibid., in paraphrase.
‘I often think how strange it is that I should know you’: Harriet Beecher Stowe to AINB, 5 June 1857, in Charles Beecher Stowe, The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Sampson Low, Son & Marston, 1889).
Lady Byron compared it to Adam Bede (‘the book of the season’): AINB to Harriet Beecher Stowe, 31 May 1859, Beecher Stowe, op. cit., p. 50.
‘The sooner you commence the better’: Anna Jones to AINB, 18 April 1859, Dep. Lovelace Byron 76, fols. 30–61.
‘She was enjoying one of those bright intervals of freedom from pain and languor’: Beecher Stowe, op. cit., p. 152.
That spontaneous gift, Harriet later observed, was entirely in keeping: ibid.
Travelling back from the funeral: Gerard Ford to RL, 12 January 1887, Dep. Lovelace Byron 184, fol. 53.
The will was extensive[fn]: Dep. Lovelace Byron 152, fol. 19.
Chapter Twenty-five: Outcast
‘She gloried in his fame.’: Harriet Martineau, Biographical Sketches (Arlington, 1868), pp. 316–25, in which the 1860 Daily News article was reprinted as part of a collection taken from Martineau’s essays and reviews for that paper. The Martineau correspondence about the project is in HM 131–8, CRL.
‘& yet it would seem
