Miranda Seymour: In Byron’s Wake

Miranda Seymour talked about her dual biography of Byron’s wife and daughter.

Miranda Seymour–biographer, novelist and critic–discussed her new book, In Byron’s Wake: The Turbulent Lives of Lord Byron’s Wife and Daughter, and her biography of Mary Shelley, which has just been reissued to mark the 200th anniversary of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

She spoke about the intersecting worlds–poetic and scientific– of three brilliant women. Byron’s daughter Ada Lovelace, called the prophet of the modern computer, was introduced to mathematics by her mother, Annabella Milbanke, also a mathematician. Mary Shelley, competing in a game of telling ghostly tales with the poet Byron, produced Frankenstein, a prophetic account of a scientific achievement.

Miranda Seymour is the author of biographies of Robert Graves and Ottoline Morrell; a memoir In My Father’s House; and Noble Endeavors, among other books.