The Autobiography of Samuel Smiles LL.D.

Samuel Smiles (23 December 1812 16 April 1904) was a Scottish author and government reformer who campaigned on a Chartist platform. But he concluded that more progress would come from new attitudes than from new laws. His masterpiece Self-Help (1859) promoted thrift and claimed that poverty was caused largely by irresponsible habits while also attacking materialism and laissez-faire government. It has been called the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism[1] and it raised Smiles to celebrity status almost overnight.