In Byron's WakeIn 1815, the clever and courted Annabella Milbanke married the notorious and brilliant Lord Byron. Just one year later, she fled, taking with her their baby daughter, Ada Lovelace. Byron himself escaped into exile and died as a revolutionary hero in 1824. Brought up by a mother who became one of the most progressive reformers of Victorian England, Byron’s little girl was introduced to mathematics as a means of calming her wild spirits. As a child invalid, Ada dreamed of building a steam-driven flying horse. As an exuberant and boldly unconventional young woman, she amplified her explanations of Charles Babbage’s unbuilt calculating engine to predict the dawn of the modern computer age.During her life, Lady Byron was praised as a paragon of virtue; within ten years of her death, she was vilified as a disgrace to her sex. Well over a hundred years later, Annabella Milbanke is still perceived as a prudish wife and cruelly controlling mother. But her hidden devotion to Byron and her tender ambitions for his mercurial, brilliant daughter reveal a deeply complex but unexpectedly sympathetic personality.Drawing on fascinating new material, Seymour reveals the ways in which Byron, long after his death, continued to shape the lives and reputations both of his wife and his daughter. |
Contents
Entering the Lists 181213 | |
An Epistolary Courtship 181314 | |
A Sojourn in Hell January to March 1815 | |
13 Piccadilly Terrace 181516 | |
My Fair Interpretress 18434 | |
Visions | |
The Enchantress 18434 | |
The Lady from Porlock 18449 | |
Vanity Fair 184750 | |
The Hand of the Past 18501 | |
Rainbows End 18512 | |
Life after Ada 18523 | |
The Separation 1816 | |
In the Public Eye 181624 | |
In Search of a Father | |
A Rainbows Arc 182935 | |
Mathematical Friendships 18345 | |
Adas Marriage 183540 | |
An Unconventional Wife 183640 | |
Ambitions and Delusions 18401 | |
A Cuckoo in the Nest 18413 | |
The Making and Breaking of a Reputation | |
Enshrinement 185360 | |
Outcast | |
Timeline of Events | |
Note on Adas Health | |
Acknowledgements | |
Select Bibliography | |
Notes | |
Other editions - View all
In Byron's Wake: The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron's Wife and Daughter ... Miranda Seymour No preview available - 2018 |
In Byron's Wake: The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron's Wife and Daughter ... Miranda Seymour No preview available - 2020 |
Common terms and phrases
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