Babbage Charles

Charles Babbage, "Father of the Computer", Declines Invitation to Meet Indian Prince

1p autograph letter inscribed overall by British inventor Charles Babbage (1791-1871), and signed by him as "C Babbage" at lower right. Written at "Durith" (?) on August 2, 1839. On red-trimmed cream stationery. Expected paper folds, else near fine. 4.625" x 7.125".

In full, with unchanged spelling and punctuation:

"Dear Lady Stepney

Will you make my apologies to the Nabob Prince of Oude for not accepting his obliging invitation for dinner on Monday - The fact is I am not sufficiently well to encounter many dinners and Chamber who is trying to make me well shakes his head of them

Ever truly Yours

C Babbage

Durith

2 Aug. 1839".

Babbage's correspondent was Lady Catherine Stepney (1778-1845), a British novelist and hostess whose salons attracted literary, artistic, and scientific notables of the early Victorian Age.

The "Nabob Prince of Oude" referred to Ekbal-ood-dowlah Bahador (born 1808). He was a disenfranchised claimant to the throne of Oude, or Oudh, a province in northern-central India now part of the modern day state of Uttar Pradesh. The grandson of Saadat Ali Khan II (ca. 1752-1814), the Prince of Oude travelled to England to lobby the British government to restore him to power and grant him the restitution of almost 2,800,000 rupees. The Prince of Oude claimed that control of his kingdom had been usurped by the British East India Company, who had wrongfully installed his uncle Muhammed Ali Shah (ca. 1777-1842) there as ruler. The case of the Prince of Oude became a cause célèbre, sympathetically publicized in Captain W. White's The Prince of Oude; or, The Claim of the Nawaub Ekbal-ood-Dowlah Bahador (London: William Strange, 1838).

Charles Babbage, sometimes called the "father of computer", was a prolific polymath. In addition to mathematics, engineering, physics, computing, and advanced calculus, the insatiable intellectual also dabbled in economics, publishing, insurance, the railroads and the postal system. Babbage's "difference machine" and "analytical engine" were primitive computers, proved to be functional even today. Between 1823-1839, Babbage was a math professor at the University of Cambridge, his alma mater.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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