Benjamin Woolley

Ada Byron Lovelace, daughter of the infamous poet and credited with writing the first computer algorithm (over a century before the first computer was ever built), is truly the stuff of historical biographies. Benjamin Woolley rubs some of the shine from her posthumous reputation in his bid to portray a fair and accurate representation of her life, but really, romance novelists would struggle to pen such an original character. Talented but tragic father, cold and calculating mother, show more scandalous cousin, and a host of well-known acquaintances, including Messrs. Babbage and Dickens. Like an intelligent Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Ada's personal life fills more pages than her 'professional' achievements.

The first few chapters are given over to the ill-fated match between Byron and Ada's mother, Annabella. Byron called her 'the Princess of Parallelograms', but Woolley shoots down her mathematical genius ('She did not have any special expertise'). After Byron's death, Annabella kept her daughter sequestered from society, with only books and tutors to divert her from her father's creative inheritance. Really, Ada's greatest achievement was surviving her manipulative mother, not inventing a computing code! The background to Babbage's Difference Engine - post-French Revolution statistics - is interesting, but according to Woolley, Ada's contribution was limited. 'She did not challenge the system - She did what she did on behalf of herself, not her sex', he writes.

I think I was expecting far more of Ada, but she married, had three children, an affair and a gambling addiction, and died relatively young, reminding me of Georgiana Cavendish. She was intelligent, yes, and had the means and the connections to test her mental agility and creativity, but I wasn't exactly overawed by her achievements. 'In more contemporary terms, it would be like nominating Lisa-Marie Presley to annotate a study of quantum computation', is Woolley's pithy summary of her work with Babbage. show less

Benjamin Woolley has chosen a great subject for biography: Ada Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, scientist, mathematician, author of the world's first computer program (or, at least of the world's first published computer program), and key collaborator of Charles Babbage, inventor of the Difference Engine and the Analytical Engine.

Unfortunately, Woolley seems a lot more interested in the relationships between Lord Byron and Ada's mother Annabella, and between Annabella and Ada, than he does show more in Ada herself. Ada is almost absent from the book until page 100, and her important role in early 19th century English mathematics and science is glossed over in favour of yet more angst between mother and daughter.

The sometimes purple prose doesn't help - try this from p. 42: "While she [Annabella] waited, she took long walks along the seaside, trying to control passions that pounded her sense of self-control as relentlessly as the waves pounded the rocky shore".

And yet, and yet - Ada still emerges from these pages as a fascinating person. I'm glad I read this biography and learned much more about her than I previously knew; but I suspect there are better biographies of Ada Lovelace to be found, or to be written. show less

Information from a large variety of source documents, compiled into an interesting narrative (without much padding). Excellent narration by David Drummond. This audiobook is about 14 hours, unabridged, and I have to admit I multi-tasked for a few minutes here and there. I'm not a history buff, but did study Jamestown in elementary school in Virginia, and have visited it numerous times. I thought I knew a lot about the settlement, but this book increased my knowledge, understanding, and show more perspective. show less

History is littered with stories of royal favourites who’ve clawed their way up from modest roots to dazzling heights of influence – but few did so quite as spectacularly as George Villiers. At the age of twenty, the future Duke of Buckingham had precious little going for him. He was a penniless gentleman, the second son of a second marriage, whose dead father had left everything to the children of his first marriage. In most cases this would have been a one-way ticket to obscure show more poverty, but George had several key advantages. He had a remarkably tenacious and ruthless mother, Mary Villiers, who recognised potential when she saw it. He had extraordinary good looks, remarkable charisma and intelligence. He (Mary decided) would be the catalyst by which his family dragged themselves to wealth and power – and there was one very obvious way to do that: to catch the king’s eye. This is one of British history’s great stories of social climbing, and Woolley delves into the detail with relish – even if I felt the book lacked the vivacity and panache that its captivating subject wielded with such ease...

For the full review, please see my blog:
https://theidlewoman.net/2019/11/06/the-kings-assassin-benjamin-woolley/ show less