The self-help book’s roots in the land of the stiff upper lip
An odd British genre has helped publishers, if not readers
The year 1859 was a big one for British publishing. Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species” was published, as was John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty”. So too was a now largely forgotten book by an author named Samuel Smiles. It was boring, badly written and critically panned: one writer called books of its sort “the silliest ever known”. Naturally, readers loved it. It outsold Darwin, popularised a new term and in the process changed publishing for ever. It was called “Self-Help” and its aim was simple: to teach readers that “with Will one can do anything”. One could certainly sell more books: last year in Britain, according to figures from Nielsen BookData, 3% of all books sold were self-help.
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