Volume 41, Number 1 & 2 · January 13, 1994
The Richest Vagabond
By Michael Meyer
Alfred Nobel: A Biography
by Kenne Fant, translated by Marianne Ruuth
Arcade, 342 pp., $24.95
Thus Nobel described himself at fiftyfour, when he was not only one of the most famous scientific inventors in the world but also one of its richest men. His was an extraordinary story. His father, Immanuel, also an inventor but a poor businessman, went bankrupt before Alfred was born, and the family was so poor that Alfred's two elder brothers sold matches in the street and his mother had to make their clothes from cheap remnants. Immanuel's fortunes changed when he moved from Stockholm to St. Petersburg. The Russian government encouraged the immigration of foreign scientists and entrepreneurs, and Immanuel, a self-taught expert in explosives, interested them by his improved land and sea mines (his subsequent inventions included a new kind of wagon wheel and Russia's first central heating system).
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