Listings for Author:
Samuel Smiles
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Samuel Smiles : Self Help
'Blatchford, once he read it carefully found [Samuel Smiles's Self Help] "one of the most delightful and invigorating books it has been my happy fortune to meet with".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Peel Glanville Blatchford Print: Book
Samuel Smiles : Self Help
'George Gregory offers a case study in the importance of Self-Help. His father was an illiterate Somsert miner, his mother a servant who read nothing but the Bible... Gregory only had a few school prizes - Jack and the Ostrich, a children's story; The Crucifixion of Philip Strong, a gripping tale of labor unrest; and the verses of Cornish poet, John Harries - and the family read a weekly serial, Strongdold the Gladiator. Having left school at twelve to work in the mines, Gregory had no access to serious reading matter until mid-adolescence, when a clerk introduced him to Self-Help. That book, he recalled in old age, "has lived with me, and in me, for more than sixty years... I was impressed by its quality for I had never touched a book of such high quality; and the impression deepened and became vivid as I took it home, read the stories of men who had helped themselves, struggled against enormous difficulties, suffered privations...but went on to rise phoenix-like from the ruins of their plans... I realised that my lack of education was not decisive of what I might become, so I commenced to reach out into the future".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: George Gregory Print: Book
Samuel Smiles : LIfe and Labour
"In Holloway ... ['General' Drummond] read Jane Porter's The Scottish Chiefs and Samuel Smiles's Life and Labour."
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: General Drummond Print: Book
Samuel Smiles : [biographies of men]
'As an apprentice I was a subscriber to the Mechanic's Library, from which I borrowed a great supply of books - my tastes lying largely in the direction of biography ... series of books of Mr Smiles, is still worth the attention of young men in search of wholesome reading.'
