The life and adventures of Arminius Vambery

In the far back corner of the Bullis Collection room, down on
the bottom shelf in the World Biography section, is a book
about a man that people today would know very little about.
The book in question is, "The Life And Adventures of Arminius
Vambery", written by Arminius Vambery.

At first glance, one might say, okay, who is this guy and why
on earth would someone care about his life and adventures?
Good question. I didn't know anything about this fellow until
I picked up the book to write out the card giving the
information about the book.

Arminius was born in the 1830's in Hungary, and he seems to
have had an extremely tough childhood. He left home at age
twelve because his parents could no longer afford to feed or
clothe him. He had an extraordinary gift for languages; he
taught himself French, Scandanavian, Portuguese, and several
others. He traveled widely around the world visiting all
sorts of places.

This is only part of the story to be told and I don't want to
spoil any of it for you. I did pick up an interesting fact
looking up Arminius on the web, though. He is the basis for
which the character of Dr. Van Helsing is based upon in the
Dracula stories. I thought that to be very interesting indeed.

I hope you get a chance to take a look at the book in the
Bullis Room. It is in Section M, row 7, way down on the
bottom shelf.

Until next time, happy reading!

A Bullis Volunteer