"What if it were all a plot? What if there really were a secret conspiracy running things behind the scenes... and they were incompetent?

"It is a little known fact that over a hundred years ago an English scientist-mathematician named Charles Babbage invented a mechanical computer that was nearly as powerful as the 'electronic brains' of the 1950s. The history books would have it that it was unworkable, an interesting dead-end.

"The history books lie. In reality, the Babbage Machine was a success whose existence was hidden from view by a society dedicated to the development of a 'secret science' that could guide the human race away from war and toward a better destiny.

"But as the decades passed their goals were perverted -- and now they apply their knowledge to install themselves as the secret rulers of the world. Can they do it? Even though their methods are imperfect, unless they are stopped their success is assured. In The Country of the Blind , the one-eyed man is King..." [jacket blurb, US pbk, 1990]

• Ada: The Enchantress of Numbers by Betty Alexandra Toole
  (1992, non-fiction...Strawberry Press, Mill Valley, California, US... annotated collection of Ada Lovelace's letters...
  "Ada Lovelace, daughter of the poet Byron, worked out the mathematics/software for the analytical engine designed by Charles Babbage. This is true cybernetic history. Real steampunk!" --Henry W.Targowski.)

Babbage's Intelligence: Calculating Engines and the Factory System
(an online paper on Babbage's work by Simon Schaffer)