Samuel Smiles

Samuel Smiles was a Scottish author, reformer, and former physician whose influential 1859 book *Self-Help* promoted self-education, perseverance, thrift, and personal responsibility. He also wrote widely read biographies of engineers and industrial figures, including George Stephenson, and worked in journalism and railway administration. His books helped establish the Victorian self-improvement tradition and made him one of the period’s most prominent didactic writers.