A demonstration record, compiled from public archives. Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace did not write it; the institutions cited here did. Sources and clearance →
1815 to 1852
The record of Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, begins in a printed volume that names her nowhere and prints her work at length.
The memoir this record turns on was published in French in the Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve, number 82, October 1842, a line the English printing carries at the head of the article. The English text appeared in London the following year as Article XXIX of Scientific Memoirs, Volume III, beginning at printed page 666. A second and longer text follows the translation under the heading "NOTES BY THE TRANSLATOR.", beginning at printed page 691, and the volume's own index enters both parts in a single line: "Analytical engine of Mr. C. Babbage, account of the, 666; notes on, 691." There are seven notes, lettered A to G, each anchored to the page of the memoir it annotates, and the initials "A. A. L." stand at the foot of them. Note G begins at printed page 722 and sets out the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli; a caption in the same volume directs the reader to it as "Note G. (page 722 et seq.)". In 1864 Babbage printed his own account of how those notes came to exist, and recorded that "The notes of the Countess of Lovelace extend to about three times the length of the original memoir." The machine the notes describe was never finished: the Science Museum Group records of its surviving trial model that "Only part of the machine as a trial piece was completed before Babbage's death in 1871."
Article XXIX of Scientific Memoirs, Volume III, London. The translation of L. F. Menabrea's memoir runs from printed page 666 and the Notes by the Translator from printed page 691. The volume's contents page credits Menabrea alone; the printed article carries no translator's name at all.
The last of the seven notes, beginning at printed page 722, on the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli. Its second paragraph begins: "The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform."
Natural History Museum Library, London (digitized for the Biodiversity Heritage Library). Public domain
An archival deposit, not a publication. The National Archives Discovery catalogue records it under the reference Dep. Lovelace Byron, held by Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Special Collections, described as papers and corresp, with covering dates 1817 to 1852.
Object number 30209019357339, shelfmark Babbage Collection MENABREA, held at the Science Museum Library at Wroughton. Printed by Richard and John E. Taylor, London, and bound with the Addition to the memoir of M Menabrea on the analytical engine.
Birthplace recorded by the Science Museum Group as London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom.
The collection record prints the entry as "1833 - introduced to Charles Babbage by Mary Fairfax Somerville".
The same record prints "1835 - married William King, eighth Baron King of Ockham, who became the Earl of Lovelace in 1838".
The 1843 printing dates the memoir it translates to the Bibliotheque Universelle de Geneve, number 82, October 1842, at the head of the article.
Article XXIX of Scientific Memoirs, Volume III, London: the translation from printed page 666, the Notes by the Translator from printed page 691.
The last of the seven notes begins at printed page 722 and works through the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli.
The Science Museum Group collection record gives the dates 1815 to 1852.
Passages from the Life of a Philosopher, page 136, under the running head The Countess of Lovelace's Notes, sets out how the notes were made and how long they ran.
7 notes
Lettered A to G, each headed with the page of the memoir it annotates: 674, 676, 677, 680, 684, 688 and 689.
666 to 731
The printed page span of Article XXIX. The translation opens at 666, the Notes by the Translator at 691, and the volume's index enters both: "Analytical engine of Mr. C. Babbage, account of the, 666; notes on, 691."
about 3 times
Babbage's printed measure of the Notes against the memoir in 1864: "about three times the length of the original memoir".
3 letters
The whole of the signature. The initials "A. A. L." are printed at the foot of the notes.
0 named credits
A full text read of the scanned 1843 volume returns no instance of Lovelace, Ada or Augusta anywhere in it.
"We may say most aptly that the Analytical Engine weaves algebraical patterns just as the Jacquard-loom weaves flowers and leaves." Printed in Scientific Memoirs, Volume III, London, 1843, in the Notes that begin at page 691. Read in the Natural History Museum Library scan digitized for the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
"The Analytical Engine has no pretensions whatever to originate any thing. It can do whatever we know how to order it to perform." The opening of the second paragraph of Note G, printed page 722 of Scientific Memoirs, Volume III, London, 1843. Read in the Natural History Museum Library scan digitized for the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
With three letters. The initials "A. A. L." are printed at the foot of the notes, and a full text read of the volume finds no fuller name anywhere in it.
Babbage, printing his own account in 1864, put it this way: "The notes of the Countess of Lovelace extend to about three times the length of the original memoir."
The last of the seven notes, beginning at printed page 722, setting out the computation by the Engine of the Numbers of Bernoulli.
No. The Science Museum Group records of the surviving trial model that "Only part of the machine as a trial piece was completed before Babbage's death in 1871."
The size of her share in the Notes. The Computer History Museum states it plainly: "The collaboration with Babbage was close and biographers debate the extent and originality of Ada's contribution."