Self-Help
by Samuel Smiles
The author Samuel Smiles was a Scot who lived in mid-19th century London. His book promoted the Puritan way of life, propagating both the virtues of early Victorian enterprise as well as its author’s own social idealism. An interesting aspect of the Smiles thesis is that he did not regard self-help as selfish – the concept was indissolubly bound up with service to others.
