{"product_id":"in-byrons-wake","title":"In Byrons Wake","description":"\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eSunday Times \u003c\/i\u003eBook of the Year\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eShortlisted for The Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'This magnificent, highly readable double biography...brings these two driven, complicated women vividly to life' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Financial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A gripping saga of a double-biography'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e Daily Mail\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'A masterful portrait' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Vastly enjoyable' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eLiterary Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'Deeply absorbing and meticulously researched' \u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Oldie\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In 1815, the clever, courted and cherished \u003cb\u003eAnnabella Milbanke\u003c\/b\u003e married the notorious and brilliant \u003cb\u003eLord Byron\u003c\/b\u003e. Just one year later, she fled, taking with her their baby daughter, the future \u003cb\u003eAda Lovelace\u003c\/b\u003e. Byron himself escaped into exile and died as a revolutionary hero in 1824, aged 36. The one thing he had asked his wife to do was to make sure that their daughter never became a poet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ada didn't. Brought up by a mother who became one of the most progressive reformers of Victorian England, Byron's little girl was introduced to mathematics as a means of calming her wild spirits. Educated by some of the most learned minds in England, she combined that scholarly discipline with a \u003cb\u003erebellious heart \u003c\/b\u003eand a \u003cb\u003evisionary imagination\u003c\/b\u003e.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As a child invalid, Ada dreamed of building a steam-driven flying horse. As an exuberant and \u003cb\u003eboldly unconventional young woman\u003c\/b\u003e, she amplified her explanations of Charles Babbage's unbuilt calculating engine to \u003cb\u003epredict\u003c\/b\u003e, as nobody would do for another century,\u003cb\u003e the dawn today of our modern computer age\u003c\/b\u003e. When Ada died - like her father, she was only 36 - great things seemed still to lie ahead for her as a passionate astronomer. Even while mired in debt from gambling and crippled by cancer, she was frenetically employing Faraday's experiments with light refraction to explore the analysis of distant stars.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eDrawing on fascinating new material\u003c\/b\u003e, Seymour reveals the ways in which \u003cb\u003eByron\u003c\/b\u003e, long after his death, continued to \u003cb\u003eshape the lives \u003c\/b\u003eand reputations both of his wife and his daughter. During her life, Lady Byron was praised as a paragon of virtue; within ten years of her death, she was vilified as a disgrace to her sex. Well over a hundred years later, Annabella Milbanke is still perceived as a prudish wife and cruelly controlling mother. But her hidden devotion to Byron and her tender ambitions for his mercurial, brilliant daughter reveal a deeply complex but unsuspectedly sympathetic personality.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Miranda Seymour has written a\u003cb\u003e masterful portrait of two remarkable women\u003c\/b\u003e, revealing how two turbulent lives were often governed and always haunted by the dangerously enchanting, quicksilver spirit of that extraordinary father whom Ada never knew.","brand":"MediaPlace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57317806473598,"sku":"NW9781471138584","price":16.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1379\/1261\/files\/9781471138584.jpg?v=1778722822","url":"https:\/\/mediaplace.com\/en-usa\/products\/in-byrons-wake","provider":"MediaPlace","version":"1.0","type":"link"}