The Difference Engine was published by Victor Gollancz in 1990, co-written with William Gibson. The premise: Charles Babbage actually completed his Analytical Engine in the 1820s. By the 1850s, Britain has experienced an information revolution equivalent to the late twentieth century’s — but powered by steam-driven mechanical computers rather than electronics. Lord Byron (who survived his fever at Missolonghi) leads a radical government. Ada Lovelace is the world’s first programmer. London runs on punch cards.
The novel follows three protagonists through this alternate 1855: Sybil Gerard, a political courtesan; Edward “Leviathan” Mallory, a paleontologist; and Laurence Oliphant, a diplomat and spy. All three pursue or are pursued by a set of mysterious punch cards that contain something dangerous — a program that could destabilize the entire British Empire.
Gibson and Sterling’s research is exhaustive: the novel is packed with real historical figures (Disraeli, Marx, Darwin, Brunel) recontextualized in the alternate timeline, and the mechanical technology is worked out with engineering precision. The London they create — smog-choked, steam-powered, its criminal class organized along computational lines — became the template for steampunk fiction.
Collecting The Difference Engine
First edition (Victor Gollancz, London, 1990): Hardcover with dust jacket.
Market values:
- UK first (Gollancz), fine/fine: $100–$300
- US first (Bantam, 1991): $40–$100
- Signed by both authors: $200–$500