A condition called cyclothymia holds out a possible answer. A cyclothymic personality will undergo rapid changes of mood, periods of depression and weight loss. Professor Edgar Jones also suggests that Ada’s way of dealing with early traumas might have led to what is clinically described as the ‘somatising’ (or suppressing) of a source of emotional distress, which would emerge in the form of a rash or bodily pains.
It has been suggested that her father suffered from epilepsy and that this, together with a bipolar condition, might help to explain his violent rages and swift recoveries, often – this was notably the case in a remarkable incident that took place in a Cephalonian monastery during the last months of Byron’s life – with a state of complete amnesia about what had taken place. But epilepsy does not, Professor Jones explains, usually pass from a father to a daughter. Ada’s own temperament, although highly erratic, was uncommonly sweet. The temper she showed as a little girl did not emerge in her adult life.
Possibly, she shared her father’s allergy to alcohol. Byron could drink wine with impunity, but not spirits. (The Cephalonian incident, during which Ada’s father barricaded himself into a room and hurled furniture at all who tried to enter it, was preceded by a great bout of gin-drinking.) The prescription given to her by the eminent Charles Locock for laudanum and claret as a cure for her ailments was probably not ideal. It is unclear whether, or how much, it exacerbated her condition. Ada herself blamed mesmerism at one point, which only shows how little she knew about the source of her affliction.
I am very grateful for the thoughts given to me on this perplexing topic by Professor Edgar Jones, by Dr Penny Sexton, by Dr Geoffrey Wong and by Dr Anthony Rockwell.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
All through the research and writing of this book, I’ve been supported and encouraged by goodwill the like of which I’ve never before experienced. It also helped that the Society of Authors very generously provided me with a grant and that the always generous Harry Ransom Center at Austin, Texas, provided a fellowship that enabled me to visit their collection. David McClay, formerly at the National Library of Scotland, and Mary Clapinson, who originally catalogued the Lovelace Byron Papers on loan to the Bodleian, gave more of their time than any mere biographer should expect. Thank you both, so much.
I am above all indebted to Lord Lytton and to Katy Loffman at Paper Lion, for gracious permission to read and quote freely from the Lovelace Byron Papers. Without this act of kindness, my whole project would have been in ruins.
In no particular order, a tremendous debt of thanks is due to:
Giuseppe Albano, Geoffrey Bond, Mark Bostridge, Robin Byron (13th Lord), Colin Harris, Henry Cobbold, John and Celia Child-Villiers, the Right Hon. Kenneth Clarke, the late Peter Cochran, Nora Crook, John Fuegi and Jo Francis, David Oldrey, Lord Zetland, Gillian, Lady Howard de Walden, Gillian O’Keefe, Professor Ursula Martin, Dr Christopher Hollings, Professor Betty Toole, Professor Richard Holmes, Sammy Jay, Stephen Wolfram, Doron Swade, Dana Kovarik, Dr Nick Booth, Jenny Childs at the Cadbury Research Collection, Lady Selina Hastings, Professor Samuel Baker, Professor Roger Louis, John and Virginia Murray, Fiona MacCarthy, Elizabeth Garver, Helen Symington at the NLS, Professor Graeme Segal and Dame Marina Warner, John Pulford and the Brooklands Museum team, Oliver Davies, Georgina Ferry, Sir Drummond Bone, Lord and Lady Ralph Kerr, Jill Weston, Dr Nicholas Woodhouse, Surrey History Centre, Benjamin Ringer, David Sneath, Sally and Henry Machin, Professor William St Clair, Sydney Padua, Professor David Brailsford (whose YouTube exposition of Babbage’s work is exquisitely lucid) and Dr Adrian Johnstone (who is engaged with a team that includes Doron Swade on Plan 28, a Royal Holloway project to build Babbage’s Analytical Engine by the 2030s).
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 Love
lace
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 the Letters of Lord Byron’s Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer (California, Strawberry Press, 1992).
Whitbourn, James, ‘Ada’, for soprano, alto, tenor, bass choir and piano (Chester, Chester Music, 2015). Commissioned to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ada Lovelace; words by Lord Byron.
Wolfram, Stephen, Idea Makers: Personal Perspectives on the Lives & Ideas of Some Notable People (Illinois, Wolfram Media, 2016).
Woolley, Benjamin, The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason and Byron’s Daughter (London, Pan Macmillan, 2015).
Lord Byron
Austin, Alfred, A Vindication of Lord Byron (London, Chapman & Hall, 1869).
Edgcumbe, Richard, Byron: The Last Phase (London, John Murray, 1909; Hamburg, Severus, 2012).
Eisler, Benita, Byron (London, Hamish Hamilton, 1999).
Grosskurth, Phyllis, Byron: The Flawed Angel (Massachusetts, Houghton Mifflin, 1997).
Jeaffreson, John Cordy, The Real Lord Byron (London, Hurst & Blackett, 1883).
MacCarthy, Fiona, Byron, Life and Legend (London, John Murray, 2002).
Marchand, Leslie, Byron: A Portrait 3 vols (London, John Murray, 1957).
—Byron’s Letters & Journals, 13 vols (John Murray, 1973–94). Moore, Thomas, Life and Letters of Lord Byron, 2 vols (London, John Murray, 1830; 1831; 1873). The 1831 edition contains Lady Byron’s ‘Remarks’.
Prothero, Rowland (ed.), The Works of Byron: Letters and Journals, 6 vols (London, John Murray, 1898–1902). This contains a great deal of useful additional information not published by Marchand.
Walker, Violet, The House of Byron (Shrewsbury, Quiller Press, 1988). Only for those who are interested in Byron’s antecedents (the family tree is the most extensive I have seen) and would like to know more about Ada’s paternal lineage.
Other useful books to consult
Bakewell, Michael and Melissa, Augusta Leigh: Byron’s Half-sister, A Biography (London, Chatto & Windus, 2000).
David, Deirdre, Intellectual Women and Victorian Patriarchy (New York, Cornell University Press, 1987).
Fox, Celina (ed.) London: World City 1800–1840 (London, Yale University Press, 1992).
Gunn, Peter, My Dearest Augusta (London, Bodley Head, 1968).
Hobhouse, John Cam, Baron Broughton, Recollections of a Long Life (London, John Murray, 1910).
Holmes, Richard, The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science (London, HarperPress, 2009).
Origo, Iris, The Last Attachment (London, John Murray, 1949).
Secord, James A., Victorian Sensation: The Extraordinary Publication, Reception, and Secret Authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (London, Chicago University Press, 2000).
Trevanion, Henry The Influence of Apathy (unknown publisher, London, 1827).
Winstone, H. V., Lady Anne Blunt: A Biography (Gloucester, Barzan, 2003).
NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS
BL –
British Library
BL&J –
Byron’s Letters & Journals (ed. by Leslie Marchand)
CRL –
Cadbury Research Library (University of Birmingham)
DLM –
Doris Langley Moore (Archive of transcriptions and notes in private collection)
HRC –
Humanities Research Center, Austin, Texas
LKC –
Locke King Collection (Brooklands Museum). The papers identified in these notes are from boxes 9 and 10
MSBY –
Somerville Papers (Bodleian Library)
NLS –
National Library of Scotland (Murray Papers, still being catalogued for reference)
NYPL –
New York Public Library (Berg Collection)
WP –
Wentworth Papers (British Library)
Where no source is provided in these notes, the originals are in the catalogued and extensive Lovelace Byron Papers (Dep. Lovelace Byron) held by the Bodleian Library by permission of the present Lord Lytton and initially placed on loan by Lord Lytton’s father.
Quotations from Hobhouse’s Diary are always connected to the late Peter Cochran’s excellent online edition (https://petercochran.wordpress.com/hobhouses-diary/). The original diaries can be found at BL, Add MS 56532–5 and Berg Collection volumes 1 and 2 (New York Public Library).
The letters from Lady Anne Blunt to her mother, grandmother and brothers are in WP, Add MS 54090–540097.
AAB; AAK; AAL –
mark the change of status from Augusta Ada Byron (1815–), to Augusta Ada King (1835–), to Augusta Ada Lovelace (1838–52)
AIK; AINK; AB –
mark the change from Lady Annabella King (Ada’s daughter), to Annabella Noel King (1860–), to Lady Anne Blunt (1869–1917)
AL –
Augusta Leigh
BO –
Byron, Viscount Ockham (Ada’s eldest son)
RGK; RW; RL –
mark the change from Lord Ralph Gordon King (1839–) to Baron Wentworth (1862–), to 2nd Earl of Lovelace (1893–1906)
EML –
Elizabeth Medora Leigh
AIM; AIB; AINB –
mark the change of status from Anne Isabella Milbanke (1792–), to Anne Isabella Byron (1815–), to Anne Isabella Noel Byron (1822–60)
JM and JN; RM and RN –
mark the shift in Annabella’s parents, in 1816, from Judith and Ralph Milbanke to Judith and Ralph Noel
MN –
Mary Noel (Annabella’s great-aunt)
SL –
Stephen Lushington
WK; WL –
mark the change from Lord (William) King (Ada’s husband) in 1838 to William, 1st Earl of Lovelace
Dates in square brackets indicate conjectured dates
Chapter One: Anticipation (1761–92)
She likes to make up stories: from AINB’s ‘Auto
Description’, written at age thirty-nine, c. 1831, Dep. Lovelace Byron 131, fols. 184–90.
Chapter Two: A Very Fine Child (1792–1810)
the county folk flocked in to see their Annabella ‘as if she had been something miraculous’: JM to MN, 12 and 27 October 1793, Dep. Lovelace Byron 17, fols. 166, 167–8.
‘one of the finest girls of her age I ever beheld,’ Mrs Baker of Elemore gushed: Isabella Baker’s addition to a letter from JM to MN, 10 March 1797, Dep. Lovelace Byron 18, fols. 42–3.
‘she was a very fine Child’: JM to MN, 22 June 1794; 3 September 1797 and 30 May 1795, Dep. Lovelace Byron 18, fols. 21–2; fols. 60–2.
‘Annabella’s Mama is determined to do it’: Sophy Curzon (later Lady Tamworth) to JM, 26 May 1794, Dep. Lovelace Byron 11, fols. 141–2.
‘but she will judge for herself & cannot be made to like any body’: JM to MN, 26 June 1798, Dep. Lovelace Byron 18, fols. 58–9.
‘the Angel . . . regrets the Sea and the Sands’: Sophy Curzon to JM, 26 May 1794, Dep. Lovelace Byron 11, fols. 141–2.
‘. . . I believe it is the bathing makes the sun & air catch her skin so much’: JM to MN, 25 August 1797, Dep. Lovelace Byron 18, fols. 58–9.
Bessy hankered after the privileged world into which she had briefly stepped: R. Anderson Aird, Notes on the Parish of Seaham (booklet, 1912), p. 12.
she had expressed outrage in 1797 at the English government’s persecution of ‘the poor oppressed Irish’: JM to MN, 24 September 1791 and 24 May 1797, Dep. Lovelace Byron 17, fols. 155–6; Dep. Lovelace Byron 18, fols. 51–3.
‘She saw that the execution was as good as the Intention’: AINB, ‘Recollections of Seaham’, 1847, Dep. Lovelace Byron 14.
In Byron's Wake Page 51
