The Bride of Science: Romance, Reason, and Byron's Daughter.BENJAMIN WOOLLEY Born of the fleeting marriage between the rational-minded Annabella Milbanke and the rebellious poet Lord Byron, Augusta Ada Byron was destined des·tine tr.v. des·tined, des·tin·ing, des·tines 1. To determine beforehand; preordain: a foolish scheme destined to fail; a film destined to become a classic. 2. to live a life betwixt be·twixt adv. & prep. Between. Idiom: betwixt and between In an intermediate position; neither wholly one thing nor another. the polarities of her time. Ada grew up during the early 19th century, when Romanticism resisted the rising influence of the Machine Age. This conflict was symbolic of her personal life. Restrained by a mother hoping to curtail any behavior resembling that of an amoral a·mor·al adj. 1. Not admitting of moral distinctions or judgments; neither moral nor immoral. 2. Lacking moral sensibility; not caring about right and wrong. father, Ada was force-fed science and mathematics. She happened to have a natural inclination to these subjects. Her ability revealed itself in her development of the first computer program and her contributions to Charles Babbage's analytical engine. However, many of her father's qualities surfaced in her affair with a tutor and her dabbling in the unconventional ideas of mesmerism mesmerism: see hypnotism. , phrenology phrenology, study of the shape of the human skull in order to draw conclusions about particular character traits and mental faculties. The theory was developed about 1800 by the German physiologist Franz Joseph Gall and popularized in the United States by Orson , and materialism. Woolley balances this complex biography with details of the shifting social, intellectual, and technological influences that defined the early Victorian Age. Originally published in hardcover in 2001. McGraw, 2002, 416 p., b&w illus., paperback, $16.95. |
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