While I'm Sailing, Say Hello Again to Ada

Beep--you have reached the answering machine of historical author Regina Scott. Regina isn’t available right now. She’s sailing today on the Lady Washington from Umatilla, Oregon, to Pasco, Washington. Expect pictures and details next week. While she’s reliving history, she thought you might enjoy reliving this post from a few years ago about another lady who made history, in the sciences. Ahoy, matey!
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We talked about Lord Byron, the famous poet, during our “Bad Boys” series a while back.  He sired one legitimate daughter, Augusta Ada Byron, who could have ended up just as tormented as her father, but instead turned out to be a true nineteenth century heroine.

 

Ada grew up knowing OF her father (he was one of the most noted figures of the time, after all), but not knowing him.  Her mother had separated from Bryon in January 1816, scarce a month after Ada was born.  He left England not long after and died in Europe when Ada was nine.  Her mother was determined that no taint of what she considered her husband’s madness should touch Ada, so she insisted that Ada be schooled in something foreign to poetry and fine literature:  mathematics and science. 

 

Ada had the best private tutors.  Her mother had been the favorite student of William Frend, the social reformer educated at Cambridge, who taught her astronomy, algebra, Latin, and geometry.  She made sure Ada had a similar education.  Unfortunately, Ada was ill much of her childhood.  By the time she was eight, she had developed terrible headaches.  At 14, she caught the measles and had to stay in bed for nearly a year.  Afterward, she had to walk crutches for awhile. 

 

When Ada was 17 (see the black-and-white drawing), she met Mary Somerville, a Scottish mathematician who had had to struggle for the right to obtain her own education.  They became great friends, and Mary encouraged Ada’s interest in mathematics.  Through Mary, Ada was introduced to Charles Babbage at a dinner party.  He had wild ideas of an Analytical Engine, a machine that would calculate the future.  Though others at the party found the idea too far-fetched, nineteen-year-old Ada was entranced. 

 

So was Babbage.  In Ada, he found an lifelong friend and pen pal.  He was so impressed with her abilities in mathematics that he called her “The Enchantress of Numbers.” 

But Society demanded a different life for Ada.  At 20, she married a baron who became the first Earl of Lovelace and promptly set about filling the nursery, with three children in four years.  Babbage, however, was also busy.  He’d developed a plan for his Analytical Engine and presented it at a scientific gathering in Italy.  Another scientist published a commentary on the idea in French.  Babbage turned to Ada to translate it into English.

She translated it, all right, but she more than tripled the article by adding her own “notes,” suggestions for how the engine might work on something practical.  She even developed an algorithm the engine might run.  She felt the engine could be used for such things as composing music, drawing pictures, and conducting scientific investigations. 

 

Ada died young, at 36 from uterine cancer.  Today, Babbage’s Analytical Engine is recognized as the first computer, and Ada is given the title of the first computer programmer.  March 24 is Augusta Ada Lovelace day, an international day of blogging in memory of the woman who helped pioneer the sciences and technology that drew the world through the industrial revolution and into the future.

 

Look for more posts on famous young (and handsome!) scientists of the early nineteenth century in the coming weeks.

Nineteenth Century Heroines: Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know

I must admit—I debated whether to include Lady Caroline Lamb as one of our nineteenth century heroines. Sure, she was a real lady who lived in the early nineteenth century in England. She was in her teens when she started her meteoric rise to infamy. But most of our nineteenth century heroines were women we could admire. I find that harder to say of dear, passionate Caro.

It was Caro who called the poet Lord Byron “mad, bad, and dangerous to know,” but perhaps that’s because it takes one to know one. She was born Caroline Ponsonby, the only daughter of the Earl of Bessborough, and spent much of her youth at Devonshire House, being the niece of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. She had a governess, then attended a finishing school in London. According to some sources, she spoke French, Italian, Greek, and Latin and dabbled in prose, poetry, and painting. In 1805, at just nineteen, she made what was considered an excellent match, marrying a rising political star, William Lamb, who would someday become Lord Melbourne and one of Queen Victoria’s closest advisors.

But Caro’s life was far more turbulent. She may well have been a bit mad. She simply couldn’t settle into being wife and mother, though that’s what everyone expected of her. She cut her hair into short curls (the first “pageboy”), dressed in boys’ clothes, and traipsed about London by night. When she did appear as a lady at balls and such, she invariably did something to draw attention to herself, like leaping over couches to reach the people she liked faster.

Or staring at gentlemen poets.

That’s one of the stories on how she and Lord Byron met. He was introduced to her by a delighted hostess at a ball, and Caro stared him down, then gave him the Cut Direct by turning her back on him without a word. A man used to having women fawn over him, he was immediately determined to pursue her.

But in the end, it was Caro who pursued him, and quite scandalously too. She truly was a bad girl. One account calls it the first celebrity stalking. For six months, he was the center of her world. She wrote him passionate letters. If he had been invited to a ball and she hadn’t, she’d stand outside until someone let her in too. She’d use her pageboy disguise to show up at his rooms and demand entrance. Byron was a man who lived large, but Caro was too much even for him. He was relieved when her husband took her to Ireland for a few months to cool off. When she returned to London, the poet made it clear their affair was over.

Caro rejected was Caro the most dangerous. Exiled for a time to the country, she made the village girls dress in white and dance around a fire while she burnt Byron in effigy. But that wasn’t enough to still her furies. If Byron could write epic poems, she could write a novel. And she did. Glenarvon, published in 1816, was a thinly disguised story of her life and lampooned a number of Society notables. Lady Jersey, one of the patronesses of the famous Almack’s, immediately rescinded Caro’s vouchers, and the rest of Society followed in turning its back on her. Only her family stayed loyal. Though she published other novels and poetry, she remained on the edges of Society until she died, in her early 40s.

So, what do you think? Should Caro be admired for being fiercely independent, for daring to flaunt Society’s rules to pursue her passions, for getting revenge for rejection? Or was she, as I suspect, truly a bit mad, bad, and dangerous to know?

Where the Fashionable Bluestocking Shopped

“Summer reading, had me a blast
Summer reading, went by so fast . . .”

Sorry, wrong period! And forgive my liberty with the lyrics. I was thinking about my favorite summer pastime, which, oddly enough, doesn’t necessarily involve beaches or boys.

Reading.

Reading was a popular pastime for the nineteenth century young lady as well, although she might not want to admit it for fear of being labeled a bluestocking, one of those ladies with more brains than social skills. Marissa’s previous posts mentioned some of the authors and stories. I, of course, am just as interested in the shopping aspects.

In the early nineteenth century, London had twelve good circulating libraries, where you could pay a subscription to borrow books; four French booksellers; one German bookseller; three children’s booksellers; and twenty dealers of rare books. If you were very fortunate, your family had a private library, or you knew someone with a private library. Marissa’s characters borrow books (with rather disastrous consequences) from the private library of a noted sorcerer in her Bewitching Season. Sir Joseph Banks, the noted botanist and president of the Royal Society, and Earl Spencer, the forefather of Princess Diana, were said to have the best private libraries. Spencer House is just off St. James’s, so quite easy to access on your way to the sensational shopping on Bond Street.

And just around the corner is Hatchard’s, one of the premier bookstores in London. It opened in 1797 at No. 173 Piccadilly. In 1801, it moved to No. 190. Later it was moved to No. 187, where you can still find it today. Hatchard’s was the social meeting place for those who loved literature. Being right across the street from the Albany, where the poet Lord Byron lived, it attracted any number of literary luminaries. Even Queen Charlotte shopped there. You could always find the daily newspapers set out on a table by the glowing fire, and your servants could wait on benches outside the door while you took your time perusing the many fine offerings.

Such as the handsome baronet thumbing through Shakespeare.

So, what are you reading this summer?

Nineteenth Century Bad Boys, Part II: The Heroic Poet

We see them today: celebrities who burst into the public eye, develop a massive group of followers who live for any crumb of information about their heroes, and eventually self-combust. One of these first meteors was the poet, Lord Byron.

A minor baron with chestnut curls, a club foot, and a brooding attitude, George Gordon, Lord Byron, might never have been noticed in social, let alone literary, circles if it hadn’t been for the publication in 1812 of the first two cantos of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. This lyric poem detailed the Grand Tour, a trip around Spain, Portugal, Greece, and Turkey, of a rather cynical young man who bore a strong resemblance to Byron himself. The book became an overnight success, and Byron was welcomed everywhere.

The young ladies of the time buried him in letters, professing admiration, adoration. They followed him around at balls and parties, hanging on every word. Each girl was certain that her pure love would heal the wounded spirit so eloquently evident in his poetry. Lady Caroline Lamb, a young married hot-head, called him “mad, bad, and dangerous to know” and then threw herself at him, repeatedly. Byron-mania was so high that, in 1814, his work The Corsair sold 10,000 copies the first day it was published!

[Note: 10,000 copies in one day will likely earn you a respectable place on the New York Times bestsellers list.]

[Note: most young adult books today don’t even get 10,000 copies in the first printing, let alone sell them in one day.]

Sadly, less than 2 years later, Byron had 1) married badly, 2) behaved madly, and 3) been put in danger of Debtors Prison by his creditors. He escaped to the Continent and died in 1824 while trying to rescue the Greeks from Turkish oppression.

On a happier note, my publisher is sufficiently pleased with the response to La Petite Four that he moved up the publication date by 5 weeks! That means it goes on sale May 29!

This month! Where are my smelling salts?