Charles Babbage’s contributions to computing technology are presented in almost every introductory text on the subject, and the computing machines he designed are described as precursors to the modern computer. This book provides a detailed look at the difference machine, the analytical engine, and Babbage’s other contributions to the development of natural philosophy and technology in the nineteenth century. Harry Buxton, a barrister and amateur mathematician, was Babbage’s friend and a fellow member of the Royal Astronomical Society. Shortly before his death in 1871, Babbage asked Buxton to write his biography and provided him with the personal documents that are the source of most of the information in this volume.

Charles Babbage was a nineteenth-century polymath who initially studied mathematics at Cambridge and subsequently pursued interests in fields as diverse as philosophy, political economy, and mechanical computing. While attempting to realize a machine for calculating and printing error-free mathematical tables, he visited factories to learn metalworking techniques, invented a system of mechanical notation to represent the states of the machine, and devised a method for correct typesetting. As the editor of this series notes, the scope of Babbage’s work makes him a difficult subject to understand in our modern age of specialized scholarship.

Although Buxton was not a professional writer even by the standards of his own time, the book is not difficult to read. It includes long quotations from Babbage’s papers, describing details of the difference machine and the analytical engine, and a few illustrations from the working drawings. The technical expositions, although occasionally confusing and repetitive, are generally comprehensible and should interest modern computer scientists. Specifically, Babbage compares the time efficiencies of various mechanical computations and discusses algorithms used to compute successive entries in mathematical tables. He also exhibits concern that people not attribute creative powers to either machine, stating vehemently that their operations could not in any way be considered intelligent.

On a lighter note, anyone who has written a grant proposal will appreciate Babbage’s letter to Sir Humphrey Davy requesting aid in obtaining government funds. After a lengthy and glowing description of the utility of the mechanical calculator, he concludes, “It must however be attained at a very considerable expense, which would not probably be replaced by the works it might produce, for a long period of time. . . .” Even in the nineteenth century the promised advantages of automated systems resided somewhere in the future.