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  • Cited by 13
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    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      June 2015
      August 2014
      ISBN:
      9781107448933
      9781108074308
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107448933
      Dimensions:
      Weight & Pages:
      Dimensions:
      (216 x 140 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.46kg, 360 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Social and Population History, British History after 1450, History
      Series:
      Cambridge Library Collection - British and Irish History, 19th Century
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    • Selected: Digital
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    Subjects:
    Social and Population History, British History after 1450, History
    Series:
    Cambridge Library Collection - British and Irish History, 19th Century
    Information

    Book description

    One of the most popular and prolific writers during the Victorian age, Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) emphasised individual responsibility in the pursuit of personal and social improvement. Among other titles, his acclaimed Lives of the Engineers (1861–2) and insightful Autobiography (1905) are also reissued in the Cambridge Library Collection. He is best known, however, for the present work. First published in 1859, it sold 20,000 copies in its first year, more than a quarter of a million by 1905, and was widely translated. Using hundreds of biographical examples, ranging from George Stephenson to Josiah Wedgwood, Smiles champions the virtues of hard work, perseverance and character in achieving success. While these values appealed to a large readership in the book's heyday, later critics saw the work as promoting a form of selfish materialism. However interpreted, this remains a crucial text for those fascinated by the Victorian drive for self-improvement.

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