Ada Lovelace's Notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine

This book is a new typesetting and construction of Ada Lovelace’s extensive notes on, along with her translation of, L. F. Menabrea’s Sketch of the Analytical Engine Invented by Charles Babbage, Esq. from 1843. This seminal work presents one of the earliest and clearest depictions of computing: it describes a machine, a program that runs on it, and how a ‘calculating engine’ could be used for more than just calculating.

Lovelace’s translation and notes are presented in a diptych, with the translation of the memoir on the left, and Lovelace’s famous Notes A through G on the right, held in place by two bronze Chicago screws each, allowing readers to review Lovelace’s notes as they reach references to them in the memoir. Text written by Lovelace is presented in black ink, with all other text presented in red.

The Bernoulli diagram in Note G – one of the first computer algorithms – is nearly a facsimile of the original. We reviewed one of the remaining original copies of the Scientific Memoirs, vol. iii, to recreate it. The one presented in this book is roughly 80% of the size of the original, on a sheet that features folds at the same locations along the diagram.

This book’s pages have a horizontal grain to aid in bending up while being read. The fold-out page, featuring the Bernoulli diagram, has a vertical grain to support the folds along the sheet. For more intensive sessions reviewing this pioneering work, the Chicago screws can be removed, allowing the pages to be laid flat on a working surface.

This book is hand bound and printed in archival pigment-based ink on acid-free natural text paper, with a cover that features flecks from its 100% recycled fibers, making each cover a one-of-one. The design of the cover imitates the cover used when this text was published on its own. This book is typeset in EB Garamond and KaTeX Computer Modern, and all diagrams closely match the original. In recreating this text and its diagrams, we reviewed every line, formula, and table from the original by hand to ensure accuracy.

We hope you enjoy this piece of computing history as much as we enjoyed capturing it in a new construction for today’s readers and computing enthusiasts.

Edition details
Softcover diptych made by hand in-house. This book is entirely made with archival quality materials and inks, and will patina like a paperback.
Cover: 100 lb natural cover made from 100% recycled fibers, with unique flecks in each one
Pages: Pigment-based archival ink in red and black on 70 lb natural paper, 102 pages + 1 fold-out diagram, secured with four bronze M5 Chicago screws
Dimensions: 24.7 cm × 14.6 cm × 1.6 cm

ISBN: 979-8-9923250-3-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2026949977

Thank you to the Department of Distinctive Collections at MIT Libraries for allowing us to review their original copy of the Scientific Memoirs, vol. iii, on which we based the facsimile of Note G’s Bernoulli diagram, as well as our updated typesetting of this book; and to Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive for their transcription and scans of the original, which we referenced in the creation of this new version.

And a personal thank you to our friends Andy Milburn, John Underkoffler, Alex Warth, and Paul Rony for discussing this book and its construction with us during its development; Andy proposed the specific idea of this book's unique construction that supports its storied content.