Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini
ENCHANTRESS OF NUMBERS
JENNIFER CHIAVERINI
The only legitimate child of Lord Byron, the most brilliant, revered, and scandalous of the Romantic poets, Ada was destined for fame long before her birth. Ada’s mathematician mother is determined to save her only child from her perilous Byron heritage. Banishing fairy tales and make-believe from the nursery, Ada’s mother provides her daughter with a rigorous education grounded in mathematics and science.
When Ada is introduced into London society as a highly eligible young heiress, she at last discovers the intellectual and social circles she has craved all her life. Little does she realise that her delightful new friendship with inventor Charles Babbage will shape her destiny.
REVIEW
Enchantress of Numbers tells the story of Augusta Ada Byron, the only legitimate daughter of the acclaimed poet, Lord Byron, who has been hailed as the world’s first computer programmer. Ada’s mathematical skills were nurtured by her mother in an attempt to counteract the more fantastical thoughts she may have inherited from her scandalous father but her upbringing was a lonely one as a result and her relationship with her mother was strained.
The book opens with a rather lengthy prologue which recounts the courtship between Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Milbanke, the only child of Sir Ralph Milbanke, 6th Baronet, and his wife, the Hon. Judith Noel. When she meets Byron for the first time, Annabella is just as enchanted by his brooding good looks as the rest of the female population, however Annabella is appalled by his reputation and determined to stay away from him. Attracted to her intellect, Byron pursues Annabella and she finally accepts his proposal believing she can save him from his wicked ways.
The couple were married on 2 January 1815 but it was disastrous from the start and Annabella was swiftly dispelled of any notion that she could save Byron. Annabella gave birth to Ada on 10 December 1815 but as her husband’s mood swings became increasingly volatile, she fled with her infant daughter to the home of her parents. Neither would see Byron again as he was forced to leave England to escape his debts.
Once the prologue comes to an end, the story is taken up by Ada who is in the last stages of a terminal illness and it is written in the style of a memoir as Ada recalls her childhood at her grandparents’ residence at Kirkby Mallory, Leicestershire. Ada was only a few months old when she was brought to live at the estate of her grandparents, yet she claims to remember those early days and even her estranged father which is a little hard to swallow. Much of Ada’s childhood is focused on her mother’s fears that she has inherited Byron’s madness and Ada is pushed towards intellectual pursuits that will engage the logical part of her mind.
Annabella’s attempts at stifling her daughter’s imagination were in vain as Ada had a rebellious streak like her father and she increasingly grew to resent her mother’s constant disapproval. About three quarters of the novel is taken up by Ada’s battles with her mother and there is a particular account of Ada’s despair when her favourite governess is dismissed for getting to close to her young charge. Ada confronts her mother in a very adult-like manner which is hard to believe as she would have been only four years old at the time. The endless chapters on Ada’s conflicts with her mother get rather tedious over time and the book would not have suffered from having them trimmed.
The narrative picks up more when Ada makes her debut into society and is finally allowed to have friends, albeit most of these friends are older than her and are eminent scientists of the day. Ada’s desire to learn never wanes and she blossoms at the soirees she is allowed to attend but even Ada cannot escape the fact her debut is designed to find her a husband. Undeterred, Ada improves her mathematical skills with the help of Mary Somerville, a Scottish writer and scientist, who introduces Ada to Charles Babbage who is in the process of finding funds to build his Difference Engine, a mechanical calculator, which immediately excites Ada when she sees the prototype.
However, Ada’s scientific pursuits are put on hold when she marries William King-Noel, 1st Earl of Lovelace, and has three children in quick succession. While Ada’s marriage is initially a happy one, she realises she has exchanged one prison for another as her husband now has control over her life and seems a little too keen to take advice from his mother-in-law in regard to Ada. As a mother and wife, Ada has less time to pursue her studies and it is almost near the end of the book before Ada is commissioned to translate a paper written by Luigi Federico Menabrea on Babbage’s calculation machines.
After translating Menabrea’s paper, Ada is encouraged to expand her work with a series of notes that go into more detail on how Babbage’s machines works and one which describes how algorithms could be written to exploit the machines capabilities. It is this note, Note G, that many point to as the first example of computer programming but her theories were never tested as the machine was never built. The paper takes Ada the best part of a year to write and is initially published to acclaim, however its popularity diminishes once it is learned it has been written by a woman.
By this time, Ada’s health has seriously begun to decline and it is obvious she is dying. Ada is eventually diagnosed with uterine cancer but the author claims Ada was never told the truth about her condition. The end of Ada’s life is dealt with quickly which is strange considering the length of time given over to the circumstances surrounding her birth. There is only a brief mention of Annabella taking over her daughter’s care where she manipulated her daughter into a religious conversion. Rumour has it Ada made a deathbed confession to her husband which caused him to abandon her bedside but this is only mentioned in the Author Note at the end.
There is no doubt the author did a lot of research for this book but it suffers as a consequence as it seems every little detail of Ada’s life had to be included no matter how inconsequential. The book becomes tedious in parts as a result and there is too much focus on her fame as Byron’s daughter when it should have been on her mathematical genius. Ada herself often remarks on how she is unable to escape from her father’s shadow so it is ironic that a book professing to be about her achievements cannot escape it either.