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Smiles, Samuel
Smiles, Samuel (1812–1904). Popularizer of the dominant social values of middle-class Victorian Britain. By profession a doctor, Smiles worked for a time as a radical journalist in Leeds before settling down as secretary (i.e. chief executive officer) to a succession of railway companies. In his leisure time he wrote a series of books, of which self-help (1859) was the most successful, selling over 250,000 copies during his lifetime. Smiles's heroes were the self-made men who laid the foundations of Britain's industrial greatness. Self-Help was a collection of potted biographies of men who had risen from poverty and obscurity to wealth and influence, interspersed with moral reflections and proverbial wisdom. Smiles's original aim was to show how working men might better themselves. However, for large sections of the working class this was simply impracticable; and in the later 19th cent. Smiles appeared to critics of capitalism as the banal apologist for bourgeois success.
John F. C. Harrison |
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Cite this article
JOHN CANNON. "Smiles, Samuel." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. JOHN CANNON. "Smiles, Samuel." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-SmilesSamuel.html JOHN CANNON. "Smiles, Samuel." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-SmilesSamuel.html |
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Smiles, Samuel
Smiles, Samuel (1812–1904), devoted his leisure to the advocacy of political and social reform, on the lines of the Manchester School, and to the biography of industrial leaders and humble self-taught students. He published a Life of George Stephenson (1875), Lives of the Engineers (1861–2), Josiah Wedgwood (1894), and many similar works, but is now principally remembered for his successful Self-help (1859), which preached industry, thrift, and self-improvement, and attacked ‘over-government’.
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Cite this article
MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Smiles, Samuel." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Smiles, Samuel." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-SmilesSamuel.html MARGARET DRABBLE and JENNY STRINGER. "Smiles, Samuel." The Concise Oxford Companion to English Literature. 2003. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O54-SmilesSamuel.html |
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Smiles, Samuel
Smiles, Samuel (1812–1904). Popularizer of the dominant social values of middle‐class Victorian Britain. By profession a doctor, Smiles worked for a time as a radical journalist in Leeds before settling down as secretary (i.e. chief executive officer) to a succession of railway companies. In his leisure time he wrote a series of books, of which Self‐Help (1859) was the most successful, selling over 250,000 copies during his lifetime.
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Cite this article
JOHN CANNON. "Smiles, Samuel." A Dictionary of British History. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 1 Jun. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>. JOHN CANNON. "Smiles, Samuel." A Dictionary of British History. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. (June 1, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O43-SmilesSamuel.html JOHN CANNON. "Smiles, Samuel." A Dictionary of British History. 2004. Retrieved June 01, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O43-SmilesSamuel.html |
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