Samuel Smiles And The Diffusion Of Victorian Ideals

4 Pages 1077 Words

In many Victorian homes Self-Help had a status second only to the Bible, and though now considered a classic display of ‘Victorian values’ (industry, thrift, progress etc.), the old-fashioned phrases and unquestioning values may well represent the cover by which we should not judge the book. Self-Help sold 20,000 copies in its first year and a quarter of a million by the end of the century and went through seventy-one reprints and at least a dozen translations in the first century after its publication. Smiles was the individualistic, optimistic apostle of hard work, moral exhortation and upward social mobility through self-culture, thrift and perseverance. Self-Help was published in 1859, the year in which Darwin published his controversial theory of natural selection in On the Origin of Species. It is a work within a broader literary tradition in which human beings advance despite great adversary. According to Smiles, even the self-made man could rise to any height and stand straight among his fellow citizens.
Sir William Herschel (1738-1822) becomes curious about astronomy while working as an oboist in a traveling orchestra. He builds his own reflecting telescope, discovers Uranus and other celestial bodies, and becomes astronomer to the King of England. His story reflects a 19th century culture obsessed with the worship of science. During Victorian times, there was a marked desire in Europe to move away from the past. Bernard Palissy (c.1510-1589) is the poor potter who threw his own furniture into a furnace in order to create his famous enamel ware; his tenacity eventually pays off and lands him the position as potter to the French throne. Josiah Wedgwood was also well known for his refinements of the ceramic making process. Granville Sharp (1735-1813) is a clerk who in his spare time begins the abolitionist movement in Britain, eventually getting the law changed to ensure any slave setting foot in Britain would be ...