Review
'The whole is prefaced by a set of remarks on Babbage's life and a catalogue of his oeuvre compiled by the editors, and rounded off with an invaluable index to the set, surely one of the most useful features of the project, allowing as it does the questing reader the liberty to roam at will through the tangled but rewarding thickets of Babbage's extraordinary world... The Pickering edition is a fine achievement, following hard upon the high standards of production set in their editions of Malthus and of Darwin. The value of Babbage, one and indivisible, is immense, allowing, as it does, a well-merited confrontation with this towering figure of the nineteenth-century intellectual and political scene. The works are all reset, copy-texts normally being taken from the latest edition which Babbage may have supervised (including passages which he so often added to later editions), spelling and punctuation modernised, and typographical errors, especially in the mathematical sections, corrected. This is a laudable enterprise for an author so publicly concerned with questions of printing and symbolism. The decision to produce such integral editions is a welcome innovation in a world too bounded by conventional belletrist pictures of that culture ...' - Simon Schaffer, The Times Literary Supplement 'Campbell-Kelly's well-produced, albeit expensive edition of Babbage's published writings is a timely venture that will do Babbage studies handsome service for time to come.' - Doron Swade, Bulletin of the Scientific Instrument Society 'A must for every university library.' - The Guardian 'These volumes are a must for any self-respecting library aiming to serve the interests of science and technology. There is something in them for the mathematician, the computer scientist, the economist, the historian, the manufacturer, the engineer and the politician. Once these volumes are put on the shelves they will be read.' - Anthony Anderson, New Scientist 'The index is invaluable and will be greeted with relief by scholars and researchers, particularly those discouraged by the recurrence, in unlikely places, of Babbage's diverse contents.' - Doran Swade, ISIS --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Charles Babbage is most often described as the father of the computer, inventing machines for calculating complex formulae which remain masterpieces of invention and technological genius. Throughout his life, Babbage challenged the conservatism of the scientific community, battled with the government of the day for subsidies to support research and development and campaigned for a new status for science in the rapidly changing world of industrialized Britain. This autobiography presents a picture of Victorian England from one of her more eccentric and brilliant sons.