#annabella milbanke

[houppellande]

Read till end for Byron's memoirs 👀​👀​👀​

Wedding attire of Lady Annabella Byron (nee Milbanke) aka Lord Byron's wife. Yes. THAT Byron. From this simple but tasteful ensemble one can somewhat understand her character (and the fate of the marriage) a bit better.

J. C. Hobhouse, Byron's best man, describes her as such on that day:

[...] Miss Milbanke came in attended by her governess, the respectable Miss Clermont. She was dressed in a muslin gown trimmed with lace at the bottom, with a white muslin curricle jacket, very plain indeed, with nothing on her head. [...]

Miss Milbanke was as firm as a rock, and during the whole ceremony looked steadily at Byron – she repeated the words audibly and well. Byron hitched at first when he said “I, George Gordon”, and when he came to “with all my worldly goods I thee endow”, looked at me with a half-smile – they were married at eleven.

And this Lord Byron's wedding waistcoat, who is said to have belonged to King George the 2nd of England (it was re-taylored for regency fashion), and which Byron wore often.

And now for something completely different! An excerpt from the lost Memoirs of Lord Byron. While the manuscript itself was destroyed, many people read (and copied!) some parts. The editor of The John Bull Magazine (1824, on which the following excerpt was published) has of course made some "mutilations" (aka censorship), but the text seems genuine, and Byron's cheeky prose style manages to shine through. Some (including the Magazine's Author) say that THIS EXACT CHAPTER was the main reason for the burning of the Memoirs.

TW: dubious consent . . .

It was now near two o’clock in the morning, and I was jaded to the soul by the delay. I had left the company, and retired to a private apartment. Will those, who think that a bridegroom on his bridal night should be so thoroughly saturated with love, as to render it impossible for him to yield to any other feeling, pardon me when I say, that I had almost fallen asleep on a sofa, when a giggling, tittering, half-blushing face popped itself into the door, and popped as fast back again, after having whispered as audibly as a suivante whispers upon the stage, that Anne was in bed? It was one of her bridemaids. Yet such is the case. I was actually dozing. Matrimony begins very soon to operate narcotically—had it been a mistress—had it been an assignation with any animal, covered with a petticoat—any thing but a wife—why, perhaps, the case would have been different.

I found my way, however, at once into the bed-room, and tore off my garments. Your pious zeal will, I am sure, be quite shocked, when I tell you I did not say my prayers that evening—morning I mean. It was, I own, wrong in me, who had been educated in the pious and praying kingdom of Scotland, and must confess myself—you need not smile—at least half a Presbyterian. Miss N—l—should I yet say Lady Byron?—had turned herself away to the most remote verge, and tightly enwrapped herself in the bed-clothes. I called her by her name—her Christian name—her pet name—every name of endearment—I spoke in the softest under tones—in the most melodious upper tones of which my voice is master. She made no answer, but lay still, and I stole my arm under her neck, which exerted all the rigidity of all its muscles to prevent the (till then undreamt of) invasion. I turned up her head—but still not a word. With gentle force I removed the close-pressed folds of the sheet from her fine form—you must let me say that of her, unfashionable as it is, and unused as I have been to paying her compliments—she resisting all the while. After all, there is nothing like a coup de main in love or war. I conquered by means of one, with the other arm, for I had got it round her waist, and using all my strength, (and what is that of a woman, particularly a woman acting the modeste, to that of a vigorous fellow, who had cleft the Hellespont,) drew her to my arms, which now clasped her to my bosom with all the warmth of glowing, boiling passion, and all the pride of victory. I pressed my lips warmly to hers. There was no return of the pressure. I pressed them again and again—slightly at last was I answered, but still that slightly was sufficient. Ce n’est que la premiere pas qui coute. She had not, however, opened her lips. I put my hand upon her heart, and it palpitated with a strong and audible beating under my touch. Heaven help it! it little knew how much more reason it would, ere long, have for more serious and more lasting throbbings.As yet she had not uttered a word, and I was becoming tired of her obstinancy. I made, therefore, a last appeal. ‘Are you afraid of me, dearest?’—I uttered, in a half-fond, half-querulous, tone. It broke the ice. She answered in a low, timid, and subdued voice—‘I am not,’—and turned to me, for the first time, with that coy and gentle pressure which is, perhaps, the dearest and most delightful of all sensations ever to be enjoyed by man. I knew by it that I had conquered. 

(Please keep in mind that, while I consider myself a Byron enthusiast, I almost never agree with his choiches/courses of action. If you want my personal opinion, i'll be happy to exchange insights!)

[mymultiplehyperfixations]

You aren’t allowed to be queer, mentally ill, or a teenage girl and be a Annabella Milbank apologist if you do Ada Lovelace will show up in your room at 3am and smite you

[poetlcs]

2023 reading tracker

total: 75/52

sff

a sky beyond the storm - sabaa tahir

enclave - claire g. coleman

a criminal magic - lee kelly (dnf)

the shattered city - lisa maxwell

a feast for crows - george r.r martin

the ballad of songbirds and snakes - suzanne collins

chain of iron - cassandra clare

hell bent - leigh bardugo

chain of thorns - cassandra clare

the bronzed beasts - roshani chokshi

the drowning faith - r.f kuang

how high we go in the dark - sequoia nagamatsu

the jasmine throne - tasha suri

the hunger games - suzanne collins

catching fire - suzanne collins

mockingjay - suzanne collins

a far wilder magic - allison saft

translated

the transmigration of bodies - yuri herrera

portrait of an unknown lady - maria gainza

love in the big city - sang young park

my brilliant friend - elena ferrante

frankenstein in baghdad - ahmed saadawi

la bastarda - trifonia melibea obono

bolla - pajtim statovci

contemporary

you are eating an orange. you are naked - sheung-king

seeing other people - diana reid

the henna wars - adiba jaigirdar

you and me on vacation - emily henry

now that i see you - emma batchelor 

delilah green doesn’t care - ashley herring blake

becoming kirrali lewis - jane harrison

style - chelsea m. cameron

yellowface - rf kuang

the summer i turned pretty - jenny han

it’s not summer without you - jenny han

the charm offensive - alison cochrun

love & virtue - diana reid

the divines - ellie eaton

sincerely, carter - whitney g

crushing - genevieve novak

icebreaker - hannah grace

cleopatra & frankenstein - coco mellors

duck a l’orange for breakfast - karina may

happy place - emily henry

wildfire - hannah grace

i am not your perfect mexican daughter - erika l. sanchez

you don’t have a shot - racquel marie

mystery/thriller

final girls - riley sager

nine liars - maureen johnson

the box in the woods - maureen johnson

a good girls guide to murder - holly jackson

good girl, bad blood - holly jackson

queen of the tiles - hanna alkaf

as good as dead - holly jackson

kill joy - holly jackson

five survive - holly jackson

the dry - jane harper

non-fiction

mirror sydney - vanessa berry

in byrons wake: the turbulent lives of lord byron’s wife and daughter, annabella milbanke and ada lovelace - miranda seymour

the lavender scare: the cold war persecution of gays and lesbians in the federal government - david k. johnson

odd girl out: the hidden culture of aggression in girls - rachel simmons

dinosaurs rediscovered - michael j. benton

queer others in victorian gothic - ardel haefele-thomas

alone time: four cities, four seasons and the pleasures of solitude - stephanie rosenbloom

how to break up with fast fashion - lauren bravo

the white album - joan didion

the gene - siddhartha mukherjee

the new hite report: the revolutionary report on female sexuality - shere hite

my body - emily ratajkowski

historical fiction

the mountains sing - nguyen phan que mai

one for the master - dorothy johnson

tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow - gabrielle zevin

the christie affair (dnf) - nina de gramont

classics

things fall apart - chinua achebe

northanger abbey - jane austen

jamaica inn - daphne du maurier 

[venicepearl]

Anne Isabella Noel Byron, 11th Baroness Wentworth and Baroness Byron (née Milbanke; 17 May 1792 – 16 May 1860), nicknamed Annabella and commonly known as Lady Byron, was the wife of poet George Gordon Byron, more commonly known as Lord Byron.

A highly educated and strictly religious woman, she seemed an unlikely match for the "amoral" and agnostic poet, and their marriage soon ended in acrimony. Lady Byron's reminiscences, published after her death by Harriet Beecher Stowe, revealed her fears about alleged incest between Lord Byron and his half-sister. The scandal about Lady Byron's suspicions accelerated Byron's intentions to leave England and return to the Mediterranean where he had lived in 1810.

Their daughter Ada worked as a mathematician with Charles Babbage, the pioneer of computer science. Lady Byron had felt that an education in mathematics and logic would counteract any possible inherited tendency towards Lord Byron's perceived insanity and romantic excess.

[benevaletete]

Lord Byron cheated on his wife Annabella Milbanke while she was pregnant with their daughter. The other woman was his half-sister Augusta Leigh (left picture). His wife grew suspicious when he named their daughter after his sister. She soon filed for divorce and threatened to make the incestuous relationship with his sister public if he shouldn’t agree to the divorce.

-> Inspo for Auguste/his wife through forced marriage/Laurent dynamic

[converse-with-air]

Fortunately I can laugh when others would cry, & so thoroughly understand his [George Leigh’s] ways. I am sure he is perfectly happy in PUTTING OFF the evil day of removal &c. & will not suffer it to come into his thoughts till absolutely driven to it. Happily or perhaps unhappily our Purchaser is enamored of his Purchase & therefore has more patience than might be expected, but I am nervous just now & dread the finale . . . I have the strength of a Lioness & the spirit of a Tigress or must have died long ago.

Augusta Leigh, letter to Annabella Milbanke, 1817

[latest-info]

Enchantress of Numbers

In the heart of London, where gas lamps cast a warm glow on cobblestone streets, Ada Lovelace’s journey into the world of numbers began. Her mother, Lady Annabella Milbanke, guided her through the intricacies of mathematics with a gentle yet firm hand. One evening, as the scent of ink and parchment lingered in the study, Ada posed a question that would shape her destiny. “Mother, can numbers not…

[intriguingpeoplebyangelafloyd]

ADA LOVELACE

ADA LOVELACE

1815-1852

Ada Lovelace was the daughter of poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Milbanke (Annabella Byron). Her mother was a mathematician and an abolitionist who wanted to put an end to slavery. Before her birth, Lord Byron believed he would be the father to a ‘glorious boy’ but was disappointed when a daughter was born. Her parents broke up 2-months later and mother and daughter moved to London. Lovelace never saw her father again; he died in 1824 when she was aged 8.

            Lovelace was known for her intelligence, her mother wanted her to learn mathematics in an attempt to tame Lovelace’s ‘argumentative disposition’. When she was aged 12, she became ill with a fever which resulted in blindness and being paralysed. Her sight returned, but she couldn’t walk for the next three years - she spent this time doing maths. Her mother employed a tutor who warned her, ‘The very great tension of mind which mathematics require is beyond the strength of a woman’s physical power of application.’

            In 1833 she was invited to a Charles Babbage gathering and there she became fascinated with his invention the Difference Engine (calculator machine) and Lovelace started working with him. Babbage was impressed with Lovelace’s knowledge and enthusiasm; he nicknamed her ‘Enchantress of Numbers’. She studied his lab books and designed a program called the Analytical Engine, which used punch cards with a sequence of numbers called Bernoulli numbers, which is now recognized as the first computer program. In 1843, she published her work under the initials, A.A.L. so people wouldn’t know she was female.

            In 1834, aged 20, she married William King-Noel and the couple had three children. In 1852, she died of uterine cancer aged 37 and was buried next to her father Lord Byron at her request.

            During the 1950s, Alan Turing recognised the programmable computer and in the 1980s the computer language, Ada, was named after her; which is still used today.

#adalovelace #lordbyron

[drcpanda12]

Who was Ada Lovelace? Ada Lovelace was a 19th-century mathematician and writer who is widely recognized as the world's first computer programmer. She was born on December 10, 1815, in London, England, and was the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella Milbanke. Ada Lovelace had a keen interest in mathematics from a young age, and she was encouraged by her mother to pursue her studies in the field. She became acquainted with the renowned mathematician Charles Babbage in 1833, and they began a correspondence that would continue throughout her life. Ada Lovelace is best known for her work on Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine, an early mechanical general-purpose computer. She recognized the machine's potential to do more than just perform mathematical calculations and wrote what is now considered to be the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Her notes on the engine, which were published in 1843, contained what is now considered to be the first computer program. Ada Lovelace died on November 27, 1852, at the age of 36 from cancer. However, her work and contributions to the field of computing have continued to inspire generations of scientists and engineers, and she is widely considered a pioneer in computer science and a trailblazer for women in STEM fields. Education of Ada Lovelace Ada Lovelace received a rigorous education in mathematics and science from a young age. Her mother, Lady Byron, was determined to steer Ada away from poetry, which she saw as a frivolous pursuit like her estranged husband, the poet Lord Byron. Instead, Lady Byron hired some of the best tutors in mathematics, science, and languages to educate Ada. In her early years, Ada was primarily educated at home, but as she grew older, she attended various schools and institutions. She studied with private tutors in mathematics, physics, and astronomy, and also learned about the latest developments in science and technology. She was particularly interested in the work of Charles Babbage, who was working on the design of a calculating machine called the Difference Engine. Later in her life, Ada Lovelace attended the University of London, where she studied advanced mathematics and other scientific disciplines. She also attended various lectures and presentations, where she met and engaged with some of the most prominent scientists and thinkers of her time. Overall, Ada Lovelace's education was well-rounded and provided her with a strong foundation in mathematics and science, which would eventually lead to her groundbreaking work in the field of computing. Work of Ada Lovelace Ada Lovelace is best known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine, an early mechanical general-purpose computer. While Babbage had designed the engine, Lovelace recognized its potential to do more than just perform mathematical calculations. She wrote what is now considered to be the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine, and she is widely regarded as the world's first computer programmer. Lovelace's notes on the Analytical Engine were published in an article in 1843, which included a translation of an article about the engine by Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea. Lovelace added extensive notes and explanations to Menabrea's article, in which she described how the machine could be programmed to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. She also explained the general principles of programming, including loops and subroutines, and foresaw the potential for machines to create music and visual art. Lovelace's contributions to the field of computing were significant and far-reaching, and her work has continued to inspire generations of scientists and engineers. She was a visionary thinker who recognized the transformative power of computing long before it became a reality, and her work laid the groundwork for the development of modern computers and programming languages.

Her legacy has been celebrated in various ways, including the establishment of Ada Lovelace Day, an annual event that aims to celebrate and promote the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. First Computer Programmer by Ada Lovelace Ada Lovelace did not invent the first computer, nor did she build one. However, she is widely recognized as the world's first computer programmer for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine, an early mechanical general-purpose computer. The Analytical Engine was designed for a machine that could perform a wide range of calculations using punch cards and gears. Babbage had designed the machine, but it was never built during his lifetime due to a lack of funding and technical difficulties. Lovelace recognized the potential of the Analytical Engine to do more than just perform mathematical calculations, and she wrote what is now considered to be the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Her notes on the engine, which were published in 1843, contained detailed explanations of how the machine could be programmed to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. She also described the general principles of programming, including loops and subroutines, and foresaw the potential for machines to create music and visual art. While the Analytical Engine was never built, Lovelace's work on the machine laid the groundwork for the development of modern computers and programming languages, and her legacy has continued to inspire generations of scientists and engineers.

[knewtoday]

Who was Ada Lovelace? Ada Lovelace was a 19th-century mathematician and writer who is widely recognized as the world's first computer programmer. She was born on December 10, 1815, in London, England, and was the daughter of the famous poet Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella Milbanke. Ada Lovelace had a keen interest in mathematics from a young age, and she was encouraged by her mother to pursue her studies in the field. She became acquainted with the renowned mathematician Charles Babbage in 1833, and they began a correspondence that would continue throughout her life. Ada Lovelace is best known for her work on Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine, an early mechanical general-purpose computer. She recognized the machine's potential to do more than just perform mathematical calculations and wrote what is now considered to be the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Her notes on the engine, which were published in 1843, contained what is now considered to be the first computer program. Ada Lovelace died on November 27, 1852, at the age of 36 from cancer. However, her work and contributions to the field of computing have continued to inspire generations of scientists and engineers, and she is widely considered a pioneer in computer science and a trailblazer for women in STEM fields. Education of Ada Lovelace Ada Lovelace received a rigorous education in mathematics and science from a young age. Her mother, Lady Byron, was determined to steer Ada away from poetry, which she saw as a frivolous pursuit like her estranged husband, the poet Lord Byron. Instead, Lady Byron hired some of the best tutors in mathematics, science, and languages to educate Ada. In her early years, Ada was primarily educated at home, but as she grew older, she attended various schools and institutions. She studied with private tutors in mathematics, physics, and astronomy, and also learned about the latest developments in science and technology. She was particularly interested in the work of Charles Babbage, who was working on the design of a calculating machine called the Difference Engine. Later in her life, Ada Lovelace attended the University of London, where she studied advanced mathematics and other scientific disciplines. She also attended various lectures and presentations, where she met and engaged with some of the most prominent scientists and thinkers of her time. Overall, Ada Lovelace's education was well-rounded and provided her with a strong foundation in mathematics and science, which would eventually lead to her groundbreaking work in the field of computing. Work of Ada Lovelace Ada Lovelace is best known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine, an early mechanical general-purpose computer. While Babbage had designed the engine, Lovelace recognized its potential to do more than just perform mathematical calculations. She wrote what is now considered to be the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine, and she is widely regarded as the world's first computer programmer. Lovelace's notes on the Analytical Engine were published in an article in 1843, which included a translation of an article about the engine by Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea. Lovelace added extensive notes and explanations to Menabrea's article, in which she described how the machine could be programmed to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. She also explained the general principles of programming, including loops and subroutines, and foresaw the potential for machines to create music and visual art. Lovelace's contributions to the field of computing were significant and far-reaching, and her work has continued to inspire generations of scientists and engineers. She was a visionary thinker who recognized the transformative power of computing long before it became a reality, and her work laid the groundwork for the development of modern computers and programming languages.

Her legacy has been celebrated in various ways, including the establishment of Ada Lovelace Day, an annual event that aims to celebrate and promote the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. First Computer Programmer by Ada Lovelace Ada Lovelace did not invent the first computer, nor did she build one. However, she is widely recognized as the world's first computer programmer for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine, an early mechanical general-purpose computer. The Analytical Engine was designed for a machine that could perform a wide range of calculations using punch cards and gears. Babbage had designed the machine, but it was never built during his lifetime due to a lack of funding and technical difficulties. Lovelace recognized the potential of the Analytical Engine to do more than just perform mathematical calculations, and she wrote what is now considered to be the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Her notes on the engine, which were published in 1843, contained detailed explanations of how the machine could be programmed to calculate a sequence of Bernoulli numbers. She also described the general principles of programming, including loops and subroutines, and foresaw the potential for machines to create music and visual art. While the Analytical Engine was never built, Lovelace's work on the machine laid the groundwork for the development of modern computers and programming languages, and her legacy has continued to inspire generations of scientists and engineers.

[gwstprojectwomenhistory]

Ada Lovelace (1815-1852): Known as "The First Programmer"

Born December 10th, 1815 as Augusta Ada Byron the only legitimate child of Lord Byron (the poet) and Annabella Milbanke. Her parents split only 2 months after her birth, leaving her father out of the picture and in the care of her mother. Her mother had a knowledge of mathematics and insisted that Ada be tutored in the subject to not end up like her father. So she was privately educated by many tutors on mathematics most notably Mary Somerville, and later on in her more serious studies the 1st math professor at the University of London, Augustus De Morgan.

Her life gets interesting in 1833 when she meets Charles Babbage (known as the father of computers) at a party Mary Somerville invited her to. Ada became fascinated with Babbage's work regarding engines ,developing a friendship and partnership with Charles Babbage to work on the what he called "The Analytical Engine"( which is a more complex version of the Difference Engine). In 1835, at age 19, she paused her studies to marry William King, the Earl of Lovelace which made Ada the Countess of Lovelace. She had 3 children with him: Bryon King-Noel, Raplh King-Milbanke, and Anne Blunt. Even though she had children she kept pursuing mathematics and working with Charles on the Analytical Engine.

Ada's most notorious contributions happened in 1843. She translated and annotated Italian engineer Luigi Manabrea's article on the engine called "Elements of Charles Babbage's Analytical Machine". Her notes proposed that the Analytical Machine (an engine) can be programmed to compute Bernoulli Numbers. She even went as far as writing the first computer program on how to do this within her annotations. She saw the potential to go beyond calculating numbers through engines, which is something other mathematicians and scientists did not look into.

She called her programming "poetical science" ,and the program language she created earned the name "Ada" by the US department of Defense in 1980. Her contribution to the Analytical Engine helped develop machines that could follow instructions and patterns, like the weaving machine. Even though Babbage never completed the Analytical Engine, Ada's work forever changed the world.

It is also known that she survived cholera and had asthma these medical complications led her to become addicted to painkillers and soon opium. She died on November 27th, 1852 from uterine cancer in London. Her notes were found and republished in 1953 in a book regarding how to compute computers to follow patterns. It is amazing to think that Ada invented programming long before the first computer, truly a pioneer for women in STEM!

For more information on Ada Lovelace:

Time Log: 00:45:22

Due to these posts accounting for my project, I plan to time log each one. Thanks for reading!

[stickytidalwavetaco]

This blue-striped Regency-era gown has been used several times. It was first created for the 1996 ITV version of 𝑬𝒎𝒎𝒂 (not to be confused with the Miramax theatrical version of 𝑬𝒎𝒎𝒂, which was also released in 1996) Kate Beckinsale first wore the gown as Emma Woodhouse. It was used again in 2003 on Julie Cox as Annabella Milbanke in 𝑩𝒚𝒓𝒐𝒏. In 2005 it was seen on Victoria Hamilton as Miss Graham in 𝑻𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑬𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑬𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒉, and in 2008 it appeared in the mini-series 𝑳𝒊𝒕𝒕𝒍𝒆 𝑫𝒐𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒕 on Amanda Lawrence as Poyner. Lastly, in 2012 it was worn by Isla Fisher as Ginny Hawkins in 𝑩𝒖𝒓𝒌𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑯𝒂𝒓𝒆. . . . . . . . . . #movies #costumes #moviecostumes #recycledmoviecostumes #costumehistory #costumeideas #dress #costumedesign #movie #gowns #moviedresses #emma #katebeckinsale #byron #juliecox #totheendsoftheearth #victoriahamilton #littledorrit #amandalawrence #burkeandhare #islafisher All intellectual property rights vests with the owner of the copyrighted material. Recycled Movie Costumes, is not Copying, Distributing and using these materials except for Entertainment purposes only and deems itself to be protected under the regulations of mandatory law (such as the right to quote), unless otherwise stated for certain material.The films/television shows/books and other media represented in the images on this website do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Recycled Movie Costumes. Said media may contain mature content. Viewer discretion is advised at all times. We are happy to take down any material that the copyright owner/trademark owner feels is a violation of their statutory right. Before proceeding with the legal measures, we request the alleged aggrieved to contact us at submissions@recycledmoviecostumes.com for us to assist them with our cooperation.

[yo-sostenible]

Ada Lovelace, la programadora que rompió los estándares de una época

Por Curro Oñate Ayer hizo más de doscientos años, nacía en Londres Ada Lovelace, la célebre matemática y escritora británica que desarrolló el primer algoritmo destinado a ser procesado por una máquina, por lo que se la considera la primera programadora de ordenadores. Hija de Annabella Milbanke y el poeta del romanticismo Lord Byron, el matrimonio no duró mucho y un mes después de nacer Ada se…

[elisaenglish]

Loneliness and the Trinity of Creativity: Ada Lovelace, the Poles of the Mind, and the Source of Her Imaginative Powers

Those who have learned to walk on the threshold of the unknown worlds… may then with the fair white wings of Imagination hope to soar further into the unexplored amidst which we live.

What an odd expectation, both hopeful and heedless of logic, that minds capable of reaching far beyond the horizon of the common imagination should be of common constitution and even emotional topography. We can only ever have the faintest map of another’s internal reality. It is hard enough to reconstitute the mental and emotional landscape of another mind across the abyss of otherness, across the barrier of the umwelt even in the present, but it especially hard across the spacetime divide of centuries and cultures. And yet something of the fragments that survive, if handled attentively and compassionately enough, can contour that remote bygone reality and yield a fuller picture of personhood than our flat hero-myths paint.

Ada Lovelace (December 10, 1815–November 27, 1852), whose uncommon mind catalysed the age of the algorithm, could reach soaring heights of the imagination and plummet to the blackest depths of loneliness. She was ill a lot: headaches, cholera, multiple severe attacks of measles. She practised her harp religiously as her mind roamed the most abstract regions of thought. She had moments of elated ideation bordering on the mystical, punctuated by plunges into the inkiest regions of being—syncopations then brushed under the sweeping diagnoses of neurasthenia or hysteria, now most likely identified as bipolar disorder.

Through it all, she understood that creativity was the ability to find “points in common, between subjects having no very apparent connexion, & hence seldom or never brought into juxtaposition”—an understanding that came easily to her, for she herself was a walking juxtaposition.

Two centuries of scholars and admirers have tried to reconstruct this complex person from the fragments she left behind, but none, in my experience, more richly and dimensionally than James Gleick in The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood (public library), which remains one of the finest books ever written about how we got to now.

With an eye to the letter Ada’s delinquent father—the poet Lord Byron—wrote to her forbidding mother—the mathematically gifted baroness Annabella Milbanke—inquiring whether the girl he abandoned was imaginative, Gleick writes:

“Yes, she was imaginative.

She was a prodigy, clever at mathematics, encouraged by tutors, talented in drawing and music, fantastically inventive and profoundly lonely. When she was twelve, she set about inventing a means of flying. “I am going to begin my paper wings tomorrow,” she wrote to her mother. She hoped “to bring the art of flying to very great perfection. I think of writing a book of Flyology illustrated with plates.” For a while she signed her letters “your very affectionate Carrier Pigeon.” She asked her mother to find a book illustrating bird anatomy, because she was reluctant “to dissect even a bird.””

Ada grew up in a cauldron of control, educated at home by her mother, who was determined to eradicate every strain of her father’s dangerous “poetical” inheritance. She handed out paper “tickets” to the girl for excelling at her lessons, then confiscated them when Ada did not meet her expectation. If this system of reward and punishment failed to motivate Ada, she was stuffed into a closet until she vowed to do better.

There was a deeper punishment being administered in her upbringing—not for something Ada did, but for something she was. This intellectual regimen itself closeted a vast and restive part of her, waiting for its powers of expression to be unlatched. She railed at her mother:

“You will not concede me philosophical poetry. Invert the order! Will you give me poetical philosophy, poetical science?”

She rebelled by claiming it for herself, becoming the first person to marry the mathematical capabilities of computational machines with the poetic possibilities of symbolic logic applied with imagination—the world’s first true computer programmer. She also rebelled by developing a romantic infatuation with her tutor, sneaking around the house and garden with him, and making out to the maximum limits of vestigial propriety until their teenage romance was found out and the tutor was promptly banished.

That spring, dressed in white satin and tulle, she met the King and Queen at her official court debut. But the real milestone came a month later, when she met a figure far more important to the history of the future: Charles Babbage—brilliant and bushy-browed, curmudgeonly and charming, described by Harper’s Monthly as “better known to readers of English newspapers as the persistent opponent of street music.” Gleick writes:

“With her mother, she went to see what Lady Byron called his “thinking machine,” the portion of the Difference Engine in his salon. Babbage saw a sparkling, self-possessed young woman with porcelain features and a notorious name, who managed to reveal that she knew more mathematics than most men graduating from university. She saw an imposing forty-one-year-old, authoritative eyebrows anchoring his strong-boned face, who possessed wit and charm and did not wear these qualities lightly. He seemed a kind of visionary—just what she was seeking. She admired the machine, too. An onlooker reported: “While other visitors gazed at the working of this beautiful instrument with the sort of expression, and I dare say the sort of feeling, that some savages are said to have shown on first seeing a looking-glass or hearing a gun, Miss Byron, young as she was, understood its working, and saw the great beauty of the invention.” Her feeling for the beauty and abstractions of mathematics, fed only in morsels from her succession of tutors, was overflowing. It had no outlet. A woman could not attend university in England, nor join a scientific society (with two exceptions: the botanical and horticultural).”

Enraptured by the possibilities that lay hidden in this new generation of machines, Ada was beginning to enjoy her unusual mind in a new way:

“I find that my plans & ideas keep gaining in clearness, & assuming more of the crystalline & less & less of the nebulous form.”

At times, in the positive extremes of her emotional polarity, her confidence crested into grandiosity, both terrible and touching:

“I do not believe that my father was (or ever could have been) such a Poet as I shall be an Analyst; (& Metaphysician); for with me the two go together indissolubly.”

Like Mary Shelley, she had waking dreams in which ideas formed in her mind by their own accord—ideas beyond anything she had been taught, beyond anything teachable. She had the metacognitive awareness that her cognition worked in unusual ways and the precocious intuition to recognise in Babbage a kindred mind on which she could hone her own. With extraordinary self-awareness of both her powers and her limits—which might be the highest achievement of maturity—she beseeched him to take her on as a pupil, not realising she was about to become the magnifying lens through which his own vision would bend past the horizon of possibility he had envisioned for it. She wrote to him:

“Bearing me in mind… I mean my mathematical interests… is the greatest favour any one can do me.—Perhaps, none of us can estimate how great... I am by nature a bit of a philosopher, & a very great speculator,—so that I look on through a very immeasurable vista, and though I see nothing but vague & cloudy uncertainty in the foreground of our being, yet I fancy I discern a very bright light a good way further on, and this makes me care much less about the cloudiness & indistinctness which is near.—Am I too imaginative for you? I think not.”

This question of the imagination—the question of the father she never met but whose portrait she kept under green drapery in her study—both thrilled and troubled her. She felt she had to keep her “metaphysical head in order,” but she also knew there was a different order of reality yet to be discovered. Mathematics was her supreme plaything of the imagination and the closest thing she knew to magic:

“I am often reminded of certain sprites & fairies one reads of, who are at one’s elbows in one shape now, & the next minute in a form most dissimilar; and uncommonly deceptive, troublesome & tantalising are the mathematical sprites & fairies sometimes.”

She longed for the precision of mathematics in the nebula of the imagination. Two centuries before Bob Dylan observed that “we’re all wind and dust anyway [and] we don’t have any proof that we are even sitting here,” she probed the edges of reality:

“We talk much of Imagination. We talk of the Imagination of Poets, the Imagination of Artists &c; I am inclined to think that in general we don’t know very exactly what we are talking about… It is that which penetrates into the unseen worlds around us, the worlds of Science. It is that which feels & discovers what is, the real which we see not, which exists not for our senses. Those who have learned to walk on the threshold of the unknown worlds… may then with the fair white wings of Imagination hope to soar further into the unexplored amidst which we live.”

For her, the imagination was not only a means of escaping from—from the loneliness, the intense dark moods, the limits of her time and place—but an escape toward something greater, something truer than what the eye could see and the common mind could hold. She recognised that she had “a peculiar way of learning“; allowing the cultural luxury of an ahistorical term, she recognised her own neurodivergence. There is a Blakean quality, a Joan of Arc spirit, in the self-declaration she sent to her mother shortly before her twenty-seventh birthday—the closest thing Ada Lovelace ever composed to a personal manifesto:

“Dearest Mama,

I must tell you what my opinion of my own mind and powers is exactly—the result of a most accurate study of myself with a view to my future plans during many months. I believe myself to possess a most singular combination of qualities exactly fitted to make me pre-eminently a discoverer of the hidden realities of nature. You will not mistake this assertion either for a wild enthusiasm or for the result of any disposition to self-exaltation. On the contrary, the belief has been forced upon me, and most slow have I been to admit it even. I will mention the three remarkable faculties in me, which united ought (all in good time) to make me see anything that a being not actually dead can see and know (for it is what we are pleased to call death that will really reveal things to us).

Firstly: owing to some peculiarity in my nervous system, I have perceptions of some things, which no one else has—or at least very few, if any. This faculty may be designated in me as a singular tact, or some might say an intuitive perception of hidden things—that is of things hidden from eyes, ears, and the ordinary senses… This alone would advantage me little, in the discovery line, but there is, secondly, my immense reasoning faculties. Thirdly: my concentrative faculty, by which I mean the power not only of throwing my whole energy and existence into whatever I choose, but also bringing to bear on any one subject or idea a vast apparatus from all sorts of apparently irrelevant and extraneous sources. I can throw rays from every quarter of the universe into one vast focus.

Now these three powers (I cannot resist the wickedness of calling them my discovering or scientific Trinity) are a vast apparatus put into my power by Providence; and it rests with me by a proper course during the next twenty years to make the engine what I please. But haste, or a restless ambition, would quite ruin the whole.

Meantime my course is so clear and obvious that it is delightful to think how straight it is. And yet what a mountain I have to climb! It is enough to frighten anyone who had not all that most insatiable and restless energy, which from my babyhood has been the plague of your life and my own.”

That year, Babbage set out to elaborate on his Difference Engine in the more complex Analytical Engine and their collaboration began in earnest. The rest, as we know, is history.

But in a tragic testament to the uncomfortable fact that even the furthest seers can’t fully bend their gaze past the horizon of their culture’s given, Ada Lovelace was captive to the Cartesian heritage of her epoch—she saw her formidable mind as an entity separate from her ailing body, existing on a plane beyond the atomic reality of her being. And who could fault her—the very notion of entropy, which brought mathematics to mortality, was still a quarter century away.

High on the thrill of solving the problem of generating Bernoulli numbers—the problem at the crux of furnishing the variables that would become the Analytical Engine’s units of information—she wrote to Babbage:

“That brain of mine is something more than merely mortal; as time will show; (if only my breathing & some other et-ceteras do not make too rapid a progress towards instead of from mortality).

Before ten years are over, the Devil’s in it if I have not sucked out some of the life-blood from the mysteries of this universe, in a way that no purely mortal lips or brains could do.

No one knows what almost awful energy & power lie yet undevelopped in that wiry little system of mine.”

With astonishing self-awareness of just how slender the line between genius and madness can be, she added:

“I say awful, because you may imagine what it might be under certain circumstances.”

Two weeks before her thirty-seventh birthday, the entropic brutality of uterine cancer dismantled the matter that made Ada’s mind, leaving behind the world’s first computer programme and the long comet-tail of this blazing prophet of the poetry of computation.

Complement with the story of how the bit was born another century later, also from The Information, then revisit artist Sydney Padua’s perennially impressive graphic novel about Ada’s collaboration with Babbage.

Source: Maria Popova, themarginalian.org (31st August 2022)

[buffyfan145]

Just watched the "Marry Shelley" movie and loved it!!! :D Really liked how they told Mary's story, how conflicted I feel about Percy which I think was a goal, and how all this stuff that happened to her inspired her to write "Frankenstein". Also, really liked how Lord Byron is finally shown in a bad light as he really did mess up so many people's lives.  My feelings changed about him once I watched "Victoria" and started looking into Lord Melbourne's life and how Lord M's wife Caroline got involved with Byron and she was never the same after that as was Lord M being treated that way as well as Byron's wife Annabella and daughter Ada Lovelace.  Then you see this movie show how horrible he treated Mary's step-sister Claire Clairmont after she got pregnant with his daughter,  how he brought out the worst in Percy, and stole John Polidori's vampire novel and published it as his own. I'm so glad Mary couldn't stand him just like how I can't now. LOL :)

[bigtickhk]

In Byron's Wake: The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron's Wife and Daughter: Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace by Miranda Seymour  https://amzn.to/2Plc7Wc