Nearly one hundred years before the advent of the computer age, Ada King, Countess of Lovelace, published the first set of instructions intended to extract data from a machine. This accessible, engaging biography will introduce readers to the mathematician who is considered by many to be the world's first computer programmer. Readers follow Lovelace, the daughter of renowned romantic poet Lord Byron and his highly educated, analytical wife, Annabella, from her sickly childhood to her untimely death at age thirty-six. What emerges is a compelling portrait of a woman who overcame Victorian conventions to become a pioneer in computer science.