Lord Byron is everywhere

frazcake at frazcave dot it (Frazcake) — Mon, 25 May 2026 00:09:00 +0200

Tonight, before going to bed, I decided to read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I gifted the book to my wife as part of a birthday present (she loves MinaLima classics and this book is part of the collection). The book starts with an introduction by Mary Shelley that sent me straight into a rabbit hole.

As some of you may know, I recently started a new series named Computing. it’s a journey on the history of computing, one step at a time. The first person I explored, and actually the reason I started the series, was Charles Babbage. And it’s incredible how things so distant from each other can be connected. While reading about him, I was already aware that he had a close relationship with Lord Byron: they were somehow friends and used to meet at dinner parties. The wild part? Lord Byron is not only the father of Ada Lovelace (as you can read in the series), but starting from the book introduction, I discovered he also had a daughter outside his marriage. And that daughter he had with Claire Clairmont… wait for it… the step-sister of Mary Shelley.

The woman whose book I picked up tonight to relax. Of course.

Right, going back to that book intro: trust me and don’t skip it. Usually, I breeze past introductions, but this one pulled me right in. I found myself digging into more about Shelley and the little crew of friends that orbited her. In just a couple of pages you get a real sense of why a 21-year-old woman set out to write something so haunting, and honestly, sometimes the story behind the story is just as good (maybe that’s why I started By the Fire in the first place).

Welcome to the diary

frazcake at frazcave dot it (Frazcake) — Sun, 24 May 2026 21:30:00 +0200

So… this exists now!

I kept having little thoughts I wanted to share, but they were too small to be a blog post. That’s why the diary exists. This is just the first page, short enough to remind me that here, even two sentences are enough.

Diary | Frazcave

Lord Byron is everywhere

Welcome to the diary