The inventor of self-help

It was the most popular book of the century.

For 100 years only the Bible could outsell it. Extracts were printed on the walls of 19th-century palaces in far-flung ­corners of the world and its advice was treated as words of heavenly ­wisdom.

When its author died, so many people attended his funeral that it was said only the death of Queen ­Victoria prompted more mourning.

His message inspired Thatcherism and spawned an industry that is now estimated to be worth more than £11billion.

And yet today few have heard of Samuel Smiles or the 450-page book he wrote, now cele­brating its 150th anniversary.

Most of us have heard of the book that happened to be published by the same publisher on the same day: Charles Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species, one of the most influential scientific texts ever written.

But while Darwin’s work caused controversy it was Smiles’s book, simply titled Self Help, that really got the Victorians excited.

Because although Darwin was revealing the secrets of life from its very beginnings, Smiles promised to make his readers rich, successful and famous.

Today when we think of self help we don’t just think of one book, we think of a whole industry.

The online bookseller Amazon sells almost 45,000 titles in its self help section.

Almost all of these books offer one simple promise: you can radically change your life for the better by making small changes to the way you think and act.

In the Victorian era most people lived according to strict moral and religious codes designed to benefit society as a whole, but Smiles focused on the individual.

Though he later protested that his book never intended to promote selfishness, once it had been written it was simply too late. An entire industry of writing based unashamedly on self-obsession had been born.

“Previously there was a romantic idea of genius,” says historian Kate Williams, who presents a new documentary on Smiles.

“It was thought that genius descended from heaven. Smiles told his readers that if they all worked terribly hard they too could be seen as geniuses, that they would gain everything they desired.”

Heaven helps those who help themselves,’ is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience,” Smiles wrote.

And it was his own human experience that had led him to this conclusion.

Born in 1812 in Haddington, East Lothian, to a paper-maker, Smiles was one of 11 children and dreamed of studying medicine. But when his father died of cholera in 1836 it seemed as if those dreams would have to be abandoned.

Fortunately for Smiles his determined mother took over the family shop, working tirelessly to keep it going while also bringing up his nine younger siblings and spending all the money she could spare on Smiles’s education.

It was a dedication to hard work that her son would never forget. Shortly after graduating, Smiles moved into journalism.

He married and had five children and became editor of the Leeds Times, a campaigner for parliamentary reform and secretary of the South Eastern Railway. But it was his writings that would eventually bring him fame.

He came to believe very strongly that the British Empire had become great because the government avoided interfering with its citizens and gave them the freedom to make their own way in the world. If we could all learn to help ourselves more we could, he claimed, be greater still.

“The spirit of self help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength,” he said.

It was a philosophy that really struck a chord with the Victorians, whose energy had already built an enormous empire and who were about to embark on an industrial revolution that would change the world for ever.

As a result, Smiles’s book enjoyed unprecedented success, selling 20,000 copies within a year of its publication, a phenomenal number for a time when much of the population was unable to read.

Over the next few years it was translated and eventually sold millions all over the world.

When one British traveller visited the new palace of an Egyptian prince, he was ­surprised to find passages from the book inscribed on the walls where passages from the Koran would traditionally have been displayed.

In Britain, appreciation for Smiles’s work was no less reverential. “Many Victorians kept their copy of Self Help with their copy of the Bible,” says John Blundell, the director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, who recently published an online version of the book.

“When Smiles died a few years after Queen Victoria it was said his cortege was second only in size to hers. I can’t imagine any writer today who would have a funeral second only to the Queen’s.”

Today Samuel Smiles’s Self Help is still in print and though it’s not as famous as it was we still feel its effect through the legacy of Thatcherism.

“Margaret Thatcher referred to ­Samuel Smiles,” says former Conservative MP Michael Portillo.

“She believed people could do much to improve their own lives and also, that if the State did too much that it could weaken their sense of responsibility and make them poorer in the moral sense and make society weaker in the moral sense.”

But Smiles was not without his critics. When the Victorian obsession with unending toil finally died down some dared to suggest that perhaps relentless hard work left little room for the pleasures of life, such as time spent with family and friends.

Smiles himself seemed to recognise this in his autobiography. Writing shortly before his death at the age of 92 he finally confesses that his overwork caused him to have a stroke while still in his 50s. His description of his life shows all the classic symptoms of a workaholic.

“I did not take my meals regularly, I had not much of an appetite, my physical power was getting wasted faster than my ­enfeebled digestion could repair it, I ceased to sleep. Why did I not stop?”

He finally seems to have come to the conclusion that unending relentless work may not be what life is all about after all.

*The Grandfather Of Self-Help, 11.30am, July 2, BBC Radio 4