Samuel Smiles is known even today as an author that promoted the improvement of society through the improvement of individuals and their character. This book describes some of the traits that make up truly great men and women, peppering it with anecdotes and examples from people of the past and of his own contemporaries. Although this was written in the 1800s, the underlying principles still apply today. One cannot listen or read for more than a few minutes without being challenged and encouraged to be a better person.

George Stephenson did not invent the steam engine, that was due to Newcomen and later to James Watt. He did not invent the steam locomotive, that was due to a number of people including Cugnot, Trevithick and others. He did not invent the Railway. Railways or tramways had been in use for two hundred years before Stephenson.

The reason why Stephenson was known as ‘The father of the steam locomotive’ was that he took a primitive, unreliable and wholly uneconomic device and turning it into an efficient machine not very different to those which ran until fifty or so years ago, married it with the iron rail and alone, and against considerable opposition,began, via the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and then the London and Birmingham Railway, the development of steam railways in England and the world.

George Stephenson began life in 1781 in the worst and poorest of all circumstances, he did not learn to read until he was twenty years old, but he, together with his son Robert, became the foremost engineers in the railway world.

If, in the middle years of the nineteenth century you wanted to build a railway, then, if you wanted it big bold and imaginative you might go to Mr. Brunel. If you wanted it to pay however, you would go to the Sephensons.

Samuel Smiles was a Scottish author and government reformer, but he concluded that more progress would come from new attitudes than from new laws. He wrote popular articles and books on his theories; ways people could help themselves overcome their problems. His book "Self-Help" brought him to celebrity status: almost overnight, he became a leading pundit and much-consulted guru. "Happy Homes" focuses on ways and reasons to be thrifty, how to find happiness in life, the opposite sex and work. What's particularly striking about this book is its clear-headed 19th Century advice for "improvement" and cultural stability, etc., combined with the entrenched and historic sexism of a paternalistic society. “Sow a thought and you get an act; Sow an act and you get a habit; Sow a habit and you get a character; Sow a character and you get a destiny.”

Short Biographies of some of the most influential engineers who developed the modern manufacturing methods behind the Industrial Revolution.

Engineers and designers tend to be fairly anonymous figures in history – content to make things rather than write about them. At the time Smiles wrote “Industrial Biography” the whole of British society was undergoing massive changes driven by developments in the High Technology of the day – Mechanical Engineering.

Much of the knowledge we have of the brilliant mechanical engineers who developed the iron and machine tools of the nineteenth century was gathered and recorded by Smiles from the men themselves and from their students. Without Bramah, Maudslay, Nasmyth , and others Brunel would not have been able to build his railways, bridges and steamships. And many of their machine tools are still in use 200 years later: my own lathe looks very similar to one made by Maudslay in 1800 and almost identical to Whitworth lathes from the 1830s.

Smiles’ most famous work is “Self Help” published in 1859: the book that defined the Liberal Victorian response to the poor. In "Industrial Biography", written only four years later, the virtues of thrift, hard work, and self-improvement are woven through the stories of the great mechanical engineers, most of whom raised themselves from very humble beginnings. In some ways Industrial Biography and the other engineering biographies published by Smiles can be seen as examples to illustrate “Self Help”.

Self-Help is the book that gave its name to the whole genre of literature known by that name. It is full of profiles of individuals who, through hard work, perseverance, and taking advantage of every opportunity that came their way, succeeded. At the same time, it discourages greed and promotes charity and philanthropy. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism", and it raised Smiles to celebrity status almost overnight.

"This book is intended as a sequel to Self-Help and Character. It might, indeed, have appeared as an introduction to these volumes; for Thrift is the basis of Self-Help, and the foundation of much that is excellent in Character. The object of this book is to induce people to employ their means for worthy purposes, and not to waste them upon selfish indulgences. Many enemies have to be encountered in accomplishing this object. There are idleness, thoughtlessness, vanity, vice, intemperance. . . ." Some of the advice is obsolete, such as discussion about military savings banks and penny banks, but the general principles still apply even today.