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Born in Jedburgh in 1780, Mary Fairfax was the daughter of one of
Nelson's captains, and in common with most girls of her time and
station she was given the kind of education which prizes gentility
over ability. Nevertheless, she taught herself algebra in secret,
and made her reputation in celestial mechanics with her 1831
translation of Laplace's Mecanique celeste as The Mechanism of the
Heavens. As she was equally interested in art, literature and
nature Somerville's lively memoirs give a fascinating picture of
her life and times from childhood in Burntisland to international
recognition and retirement in Naples. She tells of her friendship
with Maria Edgeworth and of her encounters with Scott and Fenimore
Cooper. She remembers comets and eclipses, high society in London
and Paris, Charles Babbage and his calculating engine, the
Risorgimento in Italy and the eruption of Vesuvius. Selected by her
daughter and first published in 1973, these are the memoirs of a
remarkable woman who became one of the most gifted mathematicians
and scientists of the nineteenth century. Oxford's Somerville
College was named after her, and the present volume, re-edited by
Dorothy McMillan, draws on manuscripts owned by the college and
offers the first unexpurgated edition of these revelatory writings.
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