Beginning in infancy, Ada Byron’s life often fell outside societal norms of the time. Her mother left the poet Lord Byron, Ada’s father, when their daughter was one month old, and later manipulated Ada’s perception of her father and their relationship with an iron hand. Lady Byron provided Ada with an atypical education, employing private educators and often overseeing her daughter’s efforts from afar while focusing on her own charitable projects. Only 17 when she first met Charles Babbage, Ada relished their shared interests in algebra and calculus, and her eventual essay notes explaining his early mechanical computer, the Analytical Engine, demonstrated her prescience in recognizing its potential. Challenged in personal life by her controlling mother and a distant relationship with her ineffectual husband, Ada Byron Lovelace also suffered from devastating chronic illness yet continued to contribute to the intellectual achievements of her era until her death at age 36. Extensive source notes, biographical sketches of the primary people in Ada’s life, a summary of her notes in “Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage,” a glossary, and bibliography round out a compelling biography that is short on visual elements but has a fascinating woman as its subject. (Age 12 and older)

This illuminating biography reveals how the daughter of Lord Byron, Britain’s most infamous Romantic poet, became the world’s first computer programmer.

Even by 1800s standards, Ada Byron Lovelace had an unusual upbringing. Her strict mother worked hard at cultivating her own role as the long-suffering ex-wife of bad-boy poet Lord Byron while raising Ada in isolation. Tutored by the brightest minds, Ada developed a hunger for mental puzzles, mathematical conundrums, and scientific discovery that kept pace with the breathtaking advances of the industrial and social revolutions taking place in Europe. At seventeen, Ada met eccentric inventor Charles Babbage, a kindred spirit. Their ensuing collaborations resulted in ideas and concepts that presaged computer programming by almost two hundred years, and Ada Lovelace is now recognized as a pioneer and prophet of the information age. Award-winning author Emily Arnold McCully opens the window on a peculiar and singular intellect, shaped — and hampered — by history, social norms, and family dysfunction. The result is a portrait that is at once remarkable and fascinating, tragic and triumphant.