‘O madame! madame!’: Memoirs of Alexandre Dumas, Père (Michel Lévy Frères, 1852–6). Dumas included a short, spontaneous life of Byron, during which he recalled – with merry disrespect – his own encounter with a flirtatious and golden-haired Contessa Guiccioli in Rome.
When Monsieur de Boissy died in 1866, Teresa was still feeling incensed: Mary R. Darby Smith: La Marquise de Boissy and the Count de Waldeck, Memories of Two Distinguished Persons (J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1878), p. 27. Smith describes a spirit encounter with Byron at Madame de Boissy’s Paris home in March 1868. His messages, faithfully transcribed by their recipient, the marquise, are notably lacking in wit or originality. They speak only of his devotion to Teresa Guiccioli and his interest in her visitor (as a Byron-lover).
‘precise and complete information as to everything’: Ralph Wentworth to AINK, 17 March 1869, WP, Add MS 54093–7.
Writing from England on 10 December 1869, George Eliot rebuked Stowe: Joan D. Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (OUP, 1994), p. 467.
Reverting to her finest declamatory style, Mrs Stowe set up a caricature: Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lady Byron Vindicated, or a History of the Byron Controversy (Sampson Low, Son & Marston, 1870), pp. 78–9.
a crestfallen Ralph wrote to tell his sister that it was ‘physically impossible’: Ralph Wentworth to Lady Anne Blunt (formerly AINK), 7 July 1872 (and all correspondence between these two), WP, Add MS 54093–7.
The strength of her attachment to him is apparent: I am indebted to Virginia Murray for the detailed reader’s notes to Doris Langley Moore’s unpublished memoir, and to Sir Roy Strong (25 and 26 March 2015) for background details, based upon his friendship with Langley Moore. Lady Selina Hastings (2 February 2015) supplied the account of the Hucknall wedding. Her mother, Margaret Lane, was a close friend of Mrs Langley Moore. Her account of the Hucknall wedding is confirmed both in the memoir and in a letter written by Mrs Langley Moore to Robert Innes-Smith (18 February 1988), in which she playfully suggested that they might yet repeat the exhumation of Byron’s corpse that had been carried out in 1938. Mr Innes-Smith had sent her the account by James Betteridge (the young caretaker who was present at the 1938 disinterment) of Byron’s appearance. The features, so Betteridge affirmed, had been ‘easily recognisable from the many pictures we had seen’. Byron’s skin had turned the colour of dark stone (Robert Innes-Smith, Sunday Telegraph, 7 February 1988). It would appear that this was accurate, and that Hobhouse’s inability (in 1824: see Cochran online diary) to recognise the lifeless features of his old friend may have been due to his emotions.
PICTURE CREDITS
Pagelink: Portrait of Annabella Milbanke (1792–1860) later Lady Byron, c.1800 (oil on canvas), Hoppner, John (1758–1810) / Ferens Art Gallery, Hull Museums, UK / Bridgeman Images (top); portrait miniature of Annabella Milbanke, by George Hayter, reproduced by permission of Paper Lion Ltd and Lord Lytton (bottom).
Pagelink: Portrait of Ada Byron (1815–1852), c.1822 (oil on canvas, laid on board), Comte d’Orsay (1801–1852) / Somerville College, Oxford (top); Puff in repose, courtesy of William St Clair (middle); (Augusta) Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1815–1852), 1836 (oil on canvas), Margaret Sarah Carpenter (1793–1872). Crown copyright: UK Government Art Collection (bottom).
Pagelink: George Gordon Noel Byron, 6th Baron Byron (1788–1824), 1813 (oil on canvas), Thomas Phillips (1770–1845). Crown copyright: UK Government Art Collection (top); portrait of George Anson, 8th Baron Byron (1818–1870), 1840 (lithograph), author’s collection.
Pagelink: Portrait of Lady Melbourne (1751–1818), c.1809, Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830), courtesy of Lord and Lady Ralph Kerr (top); portraits of Augusta Leigh and Medora Leigh, unknown provenance (middle, bottom).
Pagelink: Portrait of William King in dress uniform, signed, inscribed and dated ‘Sevilla 1831’ (oil on canvas), José Gutiérrez de la Vega (1791–1865), private collection, courtesy Kalfayan Galleries, Athens/ Thessaloniki (top left); portrait of Lady Hester King, Sr, 1832 (oil on canvas), John Linnell (1792–1882) © Brooklands Museum archives, reproduction of the image courtesy of Penelope Daly (top right); Lady Hester King, Jr, Brooklands Museum archives (middle left) and Reverend Sir George Crauford (middle right) c.1844 (oil on canvas), Eden Upton Eddis (1812–1901) © Brooklands Museum archives; East Horsley Towers sale of notice © Brooklands Museum archives (bottom).
Pagelink: Obituary portrait of Charles Babbage (1791–1871) published in The Illustrated London News, 4 November 1871. Portrait derived from a photograph of Babbage taken at the Fourth International Statistical Congress, London, July 1860 / Wikimedia Commons (top left); Mary Somerville (1780–1872), self-portrait (oil on panel) © Somerville College, University of Oxford (top right); Analytical Engine © Science Museum / Science & Society Picture Library, all rights reserved (bottom).
Pagelink: Portrait of Ada Lovelace (daguerreotype), Antoine Claudet (1843–1849), private collection (top); portrait of Ada Lovelace, September 1852, Lady Byron, Bodleian, Lovelace Byron Papers (bottom).
Pagelink: Portrait of Byron Ockham (1836–1862) (top left) and portrait of Ralph Wentworth (1839–1906) (top right) (daguerreotypes), Antoine Claudet (1843–1849), private collection; Lady Anne Blunt (1837–1917), c.1900, held at the Fitzwilliam, Cambridge, in the Scawen Blunt Collection (bottom).
INDEX
A note about the index: The pages referenced in this index refer to the page numbers in the print edition. Clicking on a page number will take you to the ebook location that corresponds to the beginning of that page in the print edition. For a comprehensive list of locations of any word or phrase, use your reading system’s search function.
Abbotsford (Scott’s house), 135
abolitionism, 430–1, 439
Acheson, Lady Annabella, 193–4
Acheson, Lady Olivia, 193, 204, 237
Acurus crossii (mites), 304, 311–12
Adelaide, Queen of William IV, 187
Adelaide, the (Strand building), 187
Albany (London apartments), 53
Albert, Prince Consort, 295, 349
Albury, 327–8
American Civil War, 439
Arago, Jean, 242
Arbogast, Louis François Antoine: Du calcul des dérivations, 278
Arnold, Lieutenant, 421, 427
Ashley Combe, Somerset: attraction, 202; Ada honeymoons at, 204; De Morgan declines to visit, 226; Ada rides at, 229; William Lovelace converts, 240, 247, 251, 326; Crosse visits, 305;
