Lovelace, Ada

Average customer rating:

Great Idea
A Fine and Thoroughly Disappointing Novel
An intriguing novel that elegantly intertwines mystery with history...
Tedious and Pointless
Reminded Me A Lot Of A.S. Byatt's Possession

Lord Byron's Novel: The Evening Land
John Crowley
Manufacturer: William Morrow
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0060556587
Release Date: 2005-06-14

Customer Reviews:

Great Idea.......2007-05-12

Great idea, that wore thin after a while. I loved the parts with the lovers communicating via email about the discoveries regarding the book. I loved the background of Byron's daughter's story. I didn't really get into the actual "novel" that much. Nice try though.

A Fine and Thoroughly Disappointing Novel.......2006-12-07

This novel is virtually devoid of the mystery and depth of meaning of Crowley's best novels, which I consider to be Little, Big and the Aegypt series.

Technically, it is a marvel, and the mock Byron novel is a rip-roaring read, and even the email exchanges among the principal contemporary characters are interesting; but the book as a whole is terribly predictable (the Byron novel itself being predictably unpredictable). Considering that the novel includes an account of intense literary sleuthing, there is no suspense or sense of discovery. From the beginning you know that the Byron novel has been found, so the sense of excitement the characters feel and express in their email exchanges is totally defused en route to the reader.

The book does explore the nature of self, but for Crowley in a very simplistic dualistic fashion (Byron (or rather his alter-ego in the novel-within-a-novel) in the end revealed as a split personality ); but essentially the book is about daughters coming to terms with absent, troubled fathers, which is admittedly a moving subject, and I suppose Crowley handles that aspect with subtlety and depth, so certain people will certainly find at least parts of the novel moving, but it's just too specific a subject to carry the weight of the entire novel, which in the end I considered little more than an academic display of technical virtuosity, an excercise in various voices.

An intriguing novel that elegantly intertwines mystery with history..........2006-06-24

After reading most of the reviews about Crowley's novel, it is clear to me that the greatest misconception that one can have about this story is that it was written to be a recreation of Lord Byron's lost novel and that alone. When in fact, the story Crowley tells within this book holds a much deeper resonance than that of just simply capturing a largely unknown piece of history and giving life to it. This story breathes with the diversity of a great many qualities, both historically and modernly significant; qualities like passion, strength, loss and deception. Crowley indulges his crafted words throughout this novel with both a sense of romanticism and of modernism. He weaves an intricate fantasy of what Byron's novel could have been while ingeniously informing the reader of Byron's history and staging its creation through the communication of modern characters. I thought this novel was nothing less than brilliant. Once you understand and appreciate the intricacy of significance that Crowley has created within this novel, you will name it brilliant as well.

Tedious and Pointless.......2006-01-28

Why was this book written? If this was an actual novel by Lord Byron, maybe the overstuffed mishmash of a plot (Doppelgangers! Duels! Zombies! War! Madness!) would have shed useful light on his life. But, as a pastiche, all it really is is an overstuffed mishmash, interspersed with an epistolary novel about a not-terribly-interesting young woman forming a relationship with her not-terribly-interesting father, an expatriate Roman Polansky type.

I kept comparing it, unfavorably, with another piece of mock-early-1800's writing, "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell," which, at twice the length, is still by far the more engrossing read. That, too, is overstuffed, but it gives the sense that all the many pieces have been carefully placed by an intelligent authorial hand. Crowley, in "LBN," tries to take the sting out of his book's incoherence by passing it off as an uncorrected first draft.

The one effect "LBN" had on me was to go and read some Byron-- but even that urge was blunted by the epistolary characters' repeated references to how opaque and unread Byron is.

I got this book as a present, which is the only reason I read it all the way through. It's going to be a long time before I pick up anything else by Crowley.

Reminded Me A Lot Of A.S. Byatt's Possession.......2005-11-23

Don't be fooled into thinking this is yet another in the recent deluge of TDVC clones trying to cash in on the prevailing fad about "code and quest" novels, because it isn't. This is a soundly-composed, affectionately written literary mystery that dangles the possibility before us that prior to his untimely death in the war for Greek independence, George Gordon, Lord Byron had set his hand to a novel. The tormented, dynamic spirit of the Romantic Age's rock star poet is masterfully revived here in what I found a completely convincing and elemental story worthy of Byron himself. The plot unfolds in a way that straddles the stormy past of the early 19th century, and also the email-heavy 21st. The protagonist, a woman, a rarity among these sorts of tales, tackles the intellectual challenge before her in an admirably proficient scholarly and yet also intuitive way that adds dimension to her that I found lacking in the main characters of other recent books to which this will no doubt endure comparison. I enjoyed this novel quite a lot and was pleasantly surprised that with its "off the beaten path" plot about a poet and his age, it ever saw the underbelly of a printing press. Two years ago this novel might have languished in manuscript form and this time next year the climate might shift again, but for now this represents a pleasant addition to the best seller lists of this decade and I'm glad I found it.

Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer (The Pickering Masters)

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A great book

Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: A Selection from the Letters of Lord Byron's Daughter and Her Description of the First Computer (The Pickering Masters)

Manufacturer: Critical Connection
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0912647094

Customer Reviews:

A great book.......2000-06-12

A very pleasant biography in an original format, allowing for a good understanding of the main character. Typical american biography, where few details are untold, and where the author remains "transparent". We have to assume that B.A.Toole likes Ada, since she wrote a book about her, but we can't figure out why: was it beause she was Byron's daughter, or because she was Babbage's assistant, or because she lived an interesting life, or because she worked on early computers, or for any other reason... It might be a quality of good biographers, but as a French guy, I like to feel a greater intimacy between the autobiographer and the central character. A small disappointment: the lack of details regarding Ada's program for computing Bernouilli's numbers. Having computed some of those by myself, I know what an advantage it is to have at one's disposal a good algorithm to shorten fastidious calculations. In Toole's book, those numbers are barely mentioned, and the chapter 12, even though revised by an US Army colonel,doesn't explain why the Dept of Defense has chosen the ADA language. This having ben said, I took a great pleasure in reading a book which taught me a lot, even if Toole is too discreet on "an affair" that young Ada had when she was 17 years old with one of her preceptors (the great Turner?). Again the French side in me would have liked more details on that topic... Iconography is nice and all graphics are useful. All in all, a very good book to be read by all those who feel interested by an extraordinary woman who remains too little known by the general public.

Ada: A Life and Legacy (History of Computing)

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complicated personality

Ada: A Life and Legacy (History of Computing)
Dorothy Stein
Manufacturer: The MIT Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

P>Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace, was the daughter of Lord Byron and a close friend to many of the leading figures of the Victorian era; based on her report on Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine she is also generally known as the inventor of the science of computer programming. In this engrossing biography, Dorothy Stein strips away the many layers of myth to reveal a story far more dramatic and fascinating than previous accounts have indicated.

Dorothy Stein is a psychologist with a special interest in thought and language and a background in physics and computer programming. She has taught courses in nineteenth-century women's history and in the biology and psychology of sex differences, and is particularly concerned with the use of myth in science.

Customer Reviews:

complicated personality.......2006-07-02

If you are a computer programmer, you should know that the first programmer is often considered to be Ada Lovelace. And her name lives on as a US Department of Defense computing language. (Though that language has gained no traction elsewhere.)

But who was the real Ada Lovelace? Stein has done some solid research into what is actually known and recorded about her. We see a complicated personality. Whose precise relationship to Charles Babbage is still somewhat unclear. Where they lovers? Or just friends? What we have is seen through the prism of Victorian Britain's mores, and the surviving documents are perhaps deliberately ambiguous on this point.

Ada's guesses about software that might run on Charles Babbage's machine were inspired. All the more so because there was no precedent, beyond the cards used for looms. It remains a historical pity that the machine never fully worked. In effect, she could never compile and run her code.

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The Calculating Passion of Ada Byron
Joan Baum
Manufacturer: Archon Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0208021191

The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter

Average customer rating:

Byron's daughter: spawn of acrimony
Not bad, but not really that great
A Huge Disappointment
A fascinating woman in a fascinating age
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The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter
Benjamin Woolley
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age
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ASIN: 0071373292

Book Description

Known in her own day as an enchantress of numbers, Ada Byron, Lady Lovelace, daughter of the poet Lord Byron, was one of the most fascinating women of the 19th century. In collaboration with Charles Babbage, inventor of the mechanical thinking machine that anticipated by more than a century the invention of the computer, Ada devised a method of using punchcards to calculate Bernoulli numbers, and thus became the mother of computer programming. It was in her honor that, in 1980, the U.S. Department of Defense named its computer language Ada.

In this critically acclaimed biography, author Benjamin Woolley portrays Ada Byron's life as the embodiment of the schism between the worlds of Romanticism and scientific rationalism. He describes how Ada's efforts to bridge these opposites with a poetical science was the driving force behind one of the most remarkable careers of the Victorian Age. A brilliant chronicle of an extraordinary life in math and science and an enthralling rumination on the death of Romanticism and the birth of the Machine Age, The Bride of Science offers thought-provoking insights into the seemingly irreconcilable opposition between art and science that continues to haunt us today.

Customer Reviews:

Byron's daughter: spawn of acrimony.......2006-06-20

I bailed out of this about a third of the way through, having gotten extremely frustrated waiting for the author to discuss Ada Lovelace. She never was as vividly portrayed as her parents; I have learned more about her from snippets in books about Victorian intellectual life. Even when she is on stage, it is as the puppet of her domineering mother - the incidents are at least as much about Lady Byron as about Ada. I suggest that my review title would be a more accurate description of the contents. Or perhaps, the Martyrdom of Lord Byron at the Hands of His Demented Wife.

It appears that the author's real interest is Lord Byron, who appears in what is supposedly a biography of his daughter more than can be justified, since he had virtually no involvement in her life after the shipwreck of his marriage. I am somewhat skeptical about how good a father Byron would have been in any case - writing touching lines about the loss of one's child is a far cry from the actual inconveniences of being a parent. This really isn't the point. Byron must have haunted Ada's life: he was famous, and Woolley would have it that cleansing his daughter of any similarities was the obsession of Lady Byron's life. But this wasn't the flesh-and-blood Byron, but society's and Lady Byron's view of him. Woolley rambles on about his doings that were probably irrelevant to Ada. Meanwhile, she is a dimly glimpsed cipher.

Despite the one star, this might be an interesting book for someone who wants to read about Byron and his marriage, particularly a reader who isn't expecting something else.

It's a pity that the Byrons' marriage was such a disaster, but really, I picked this up to learn about Ada Lovelace, not how vicious unhappy marriages can get. For that purpose, an article would have sufficed.

Not bad, but not really that great.......2002-10-12

As a historian of science and technology, and also a person very interested in computer science and fascinated by poetry as well, this book looked like a full 5 stars at first. Like some of the other reviewers, I felt swamped by the details of Ada's emotional life; yet, there are flashes of brilliance where the author makes a clear connection between her social position, her interior life as we can best judge it, and her pursuits. I wonder if there would have been a better way to organize the book; as it stands now, the book is almost purely narrative (with some asides and flashbacks), and appears to be aimed at the popular reader with a seasoning of technical information to goad the more serious critic into reading on. On the positive side, I was pleased to read a clarification of Ada's role in the Babbage Difference Engine's precocious presentation. And at times, the story was fascinating. Other times, it was just plain soggy.

A Huge Disappointment.......2002-03-24

Ada Lovelace had a rich intellectual life.

As a huge disservice to her, this book is one extended gossip column of speculation and opinion about her personal life and that of her parents. In contrast, only a few pages are devoted to the Difference Engine and Analytical Engine.

At first I thought the author was gossiping about her parents as what he considered a necessary background to understanding Ada, so I kept reading, hoping to get to the substance of the book soon-- but the gossip never stopped, right through the description of her death.

If you too have a rich intellectual life, you will enjoy this book as much as you enjoy reading gossip about celebrities in the National Enquirer.

A fascinating woman in a fascinating age.......2002-02-01

Every computer programmer knows (or should) that Ada Lovelace was the first computer programmer, honored with the name of the DoD's official programming language. What I didn't know was that she was the daughter of Byron, the poet.

Her parents were a very strange match, actually: Byron the flamboyant Romantic poet and Annabella Millbanke, a coldly rational woman he dubbed "the Princess of Parallelograms." Their relationship was a brief one, followed by a bitter estrangement, but it produced a daughter, Ada.

Ada was raised exclusively by her mother, seemingly more as a science project - a demonstration of rational childraising principles - than as anything involving parental affection. Not surprisingly, she grew up to be a brilliant woman prone to nervous disorders which, when combined with attempts at treatment, led to a short life, with her dying at 37.

The focus of this book is set by the dichotomy between science and poetry exemplified by Byron and Annabella. The time period is one of extraordinary technical advancement, with the locomotive and the telegraph shrinking the world in a way that even our jet planes and satellite links can't compare. Some embraced this revolution, even some of the poets, while others rejected it.

Those like me who came to this book looking for a detailed account of Ada and her association with Babbage and his Difference Engine will come away disappointed. It is indeed covered, and Woolley describes Ada's monograph on the principles of the Engine as being a hundred years ahead of its time. But after providing a copious lead-in (to such an extent that Annabella seems as much the subject as Ada), he quickly moves on to the latter part of her life.

Still, this is an interesting book about a fascinating age and fascinating people.

Mistress of The Idea of Computation.......2001-04-30

We will forever wonder if Charles Babbage could have given the computer age a jump start of a century. His brilliant designs for intricate and complicated calculating machines included the never-built Analytical Engine, which would have had a memory and a processor like our electronic versions, and would have run on punched cards, programmable and flexible enough to vary its routine through the If-Then steps familiar to any programmer. It never got funded because others were not able to envision just how singularly useful the gadget could have been, but Babbage had one friend and interpreter who knew the potential of his creation, and who handed the world a prescient account of what this computer might be expected to do.

Her name was Ada Lovelace, and although her ties to Babbage and his machine give her a connection to our century, she was a sensation in her own times by right of birth. As told in the exciting biography _The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter_ (McGraw-Hill) by Benjamin Woolley, everyone knew about Ada because she was the one child of Lord and Lady Byron. Their stormy marriage had endured only eleven months when Ada was born, and a month later, Lady Byron left him; he left for the continent, never to see his daughter again. Lady Byron was motivated ever after to vindicate herself against Byron, and she raised Ada to be a soldier in this cause; she tried to make sure that the child was raised on mathematics to suppress imagination and keep any elements of the Byronic temperament from breaking out.

Raising Ada was thus a science experiment, one that didn't work. She remained curious about her father, and as she got older, she was convinced that she had genius from him and was impelled to express it. She couldn't do it through mathematics, as despite all the intense training, she wasn't a mathematician. But she was introduced to Babbage, and in 1840, set out to translate a paper he had presented on his Analytical Engine in Italy. She didn't just translate, but with Babbage's help, she made her own notes on the meaning of the computer and what it could and could not do, amazingly prescient for her time.

Woolley has not only given a fine biography of a limited woman who happened to be at the center of events that presaged our future. He has given capsule biographies of Lord and Lady Byron, Babbage, and many others who were connected with her. Furthermore, he has given historic notes on phases that touched Ada's life, such as phrenology and mesmerism, which are extremely interesting and valuable, and his argument that the Analytical Engine could not catch on because the Victorian world was not ready for the computer is fascinating. Even feminists and cyberhistorians who want to make Ada something she wasn't (and there are many of these) should be thrilled with this portrait of what she really was.

Ada: A Life and a Legacy (Mit Press Series in the History of Computing)
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Ada: A Life and a Legacy (Mit Press Series in the History of Computing)
Dorothy Stein
Manufacturer: Mit Pr
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Ada Lovelace (Who Was...?)
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The PC princess - makes a great gift

Ada Lovelace (Who Was...?)
Lucy Lethbridge
Manufacturer: Short Books, London
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Ada, the Enchantress of Numbers: Prophet of the Computer Age

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Customer Reviews:

The PC princess - makes a great gift.......2001-11-16

This is actually a childrens book but represents the sort of style a modern book could have. A short digest about something you never knew before.

Would you believe that an eccentric English girl could have been drilled in maths enough to enjoy it? That she could work for hours on making a flying machine when such things were unheard of? That she could understand the abstruse principles of a mechanincal calculating machine, enough to translate an Italian work about it working hard like a robot?

She had beauty, brains and breeding, and was an aristocrat. There was only one and only Ada. A true heroine. Where did they make them?

Book Description

Lovelace provides an introduction to <B>Ada 95</B>, one of the most widely used programming languages in the world. Although the reader is assumed to have a basic understanding of programming, no prior exposure to Ada is assumed and all the basics of the language are covered. The book comprises eighteen chapters each of which is composed of short sections designed to cover a small number of key concept and to provide a test question to check the reader's understanding of the concepts covered. Each chapter then concludes with a small quiz to help ensure that the reader has grasped the principles covered in the chapter. One of Ada 95's new features, its object-oriented facilities, is covered in depth, and all of the essential features of Ada programming are covered thoroughly. In Ada 95 significant enhancements were also added to Ada's ability to interface with other programming languages (such as C, Fortran, and Cobol) and these are covered in one chapter. As a result both students and professional programmers learning Ada for the first time will welcome this new text.

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Computer Pioneers

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