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Title details for Enchantress of Numbers by Jennifer Chiaverini - Available

Enchantress of Numbers

A Novel of Ada Lovelace

by Jennifer Chiaverini
Virginia Leishman
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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The New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmakerand Switchboard Soldiers illuminates the life of Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace—Lord Byron's daughter and the world's first computer programmer.
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. But her mathematician mother, estranged from Ada's infamous and destructively passionate father, 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. Any troubling spark of imagination—or worse yet, passion or poetry—is promptly extinguished. Or so her mother believes.
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 realize how her exciting new friendship with Charles Babbage—the brilliant, charming, and occasionally curmudgeonly inventor of an extraordinary machine, the Difference Engine—will define her destiny.
Enchantress of Numbers unveils the passions, dreams, and insatiable thirst for knowledge of a largely unheralded pioneer in computing—a young woman who stepped out of her father's shadow to achieve her own laurels and champion the new technology that would shape the future.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    December 12, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781501960499
      • File size: 577162 KB
      • Duration: 20:02:25

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Any study of British literature will likely yield time spent with the celebrated poet Lord Byron, the tempestuous antagonist of this fascinating audiobook. Narrator Virginia Leishman's gracefully clipped British accent brings to life the story of Ada, Byron's only legitimate daughter. Simultaneously expansive and precise, Leishman's voice echoes the quintessentially accessible nature of this work of historical fiction. Listeners will be seized by the emotional struggles surrounding Ada's lineage and held in thrall by the sense of place established by both prose and performer. One needn't be an English professor to enjoy the drama of the story, told so well by author and narrator. Indeed, elegant in style, engaged in delivery, and riveting in content, this audiobook will entertain a wide array of listeners. L.B.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 29, 2018
      This intricate fictional memoir of Ada Lovelace, considered the first computer programmer, by Chiaverini (Fates and Traitors) combines biography with the style of a novel of manners. The novel opens with a lengthy prologue imagining the courtship and brief marriage of the rather odious George Gordon Lord Byron, the sixth Baron Byron, and the restrained Anne Isabella Milbanke, eleventh Baroness Wentworth. Shortly after the birth of their only child, Augusta Ada Byron, in 1815, the pair split and Byron left England, never to return or see his daughter again. Despite his absence, Ada credits the great poet with casting a shadow across her life, and her mother constantly searches for signs of Byron’s mania in her. Though Ada’s keen interest in mathematics is clear from almost the beginning, it is only her association with Charles Babbage that leads to her now-famous creation of the first ever computer program. Period fans will delight in the details of gowns, suitors, and rivals that fill the pages until Ada’s rapid romance with and then marriage to William, Lord King, who will eventually become the first Earl of Lovelace. Chiaverini’s novel is a wonderful blend of history and fiction, poetry and math.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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