In Byron's Wake: The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron's Wife and Daughter: Annabella Milbanke and Ada Lovelace

Seymour (visiting professor, Nottingham Trent Univ.; Mary Shelley) turns a critical eye to the women in Lord Byron's life. Anne Isabella "Annabella" Noel Milbanke (1792-1860), "one of the most coveted young women of the year," owing to her large dowry and inheritance, married the young poet; their brief union marred by cruelty and an affair between Byron and his half-sister. After the couple separated, Annabella ensured their daughter Ada never met her father. Ada, an astute mathematician, counted Charles Babbage as an academic mentor. Chosen to author an English translation of a French scientific article on his Analytical Engine machine, she hinted at the later invention of computers though the world "was not ready either for it or for her." Always susceptible to illness, she passed away at 36, just like her father. Seymour owns Thrumpton Hall, the ancestral home of Annabella and Ada, and laboriously documents the family history through private letters. However, an overemphasis on detail is this work's weakness, potentially overwhelming nonacademicians, with Jennifer Chiaverini's Enchantress of Numbers providing a more accessible version of Ada's life.