Self-Help: The Original Guide to Bootstrapping Your Success

Samuel Smiles

ISBN 10: 0486813037 / ISBN 13: 9780486813035

Published by Dover Publications Inc., 2017

About this Item

This 1859 guide coined the term self-help, promoting perseverance and ingenuity despite hardships and disappointments. Examples from the lives of prominent inventors and entrepreneurs illustrate the value of patience and optimism.

Seller Inventory # 0093574

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Self-Help: The Original Guide to Bootstrapping Your Success
• Publisher: Dover Publications Inc.
• Publication Date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0486813037
• ISBN 13: 9780486813035
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Author Samuel Smiles coined the phrase self-help with this bestseller, originally published in 1859. Smiles envisions a world in which the lowliest members of a community can reach the heights of society through merit and hard work. A firm believer in the value of sustained effort, he emphasizes the pleasure of engaging in self-improvement for its own sake rather than strictly as a means to worldly advancement. The capacity of work well done to ennoble the life of any man, however humble, is Smiles' main thesis, illustrated with examples of wisdom gleaned from the biographies of notable self-starters.
Written at the close of the Industrial Revolution, this book was influenced by the technological advances of the previous century, in which new manufacturing processes and scientific advances enabled greater accomplishments by determined, hard-working individuals. Citing incidents from the lives of prominent inventors and entrepreneurs, Smiles exhorts readers to draw upon their internal resources to get ahead in the world. The book celebrates the traits of perseverance and ingenuity, advocating in self-belief despite hardships and failures, with many illustrations of the value of patience and optimism. The founding work of the self-help movement, this volume retains the capacity to inspire.

About the Author

Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was the father of the modern self-help movement, originating the much-used term with this 1859 publication. A prominent Victorian liberal, he advocated for universal suffrage among men. Smiles' frustration with the limits of government action, however, aroused his interest in motivating individuals to independently transform their lives.