This book became an immediate best-seller. It has been called "the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism" and raised its author to celebrity status overnight. It inspired Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota. A copy rests on display at the museum on his birth site.
It's a series of biographies of high achieving men and self-made millionaires from simple origins, like Newton, James Watt, Adam Smith, and many others. Smiles promotes the idea that success in life depends not on genius or intellect, but on "the energetic use of simple means and ordinary qualities, with which nearly all human individuals have been endowed."
Even those at the bottom of the social ladder can improve themselves through a productive work ethic and perseverance and rise to the highest ranks. It stands out from other books of similar nature because of its "neatness of phrase, wide range of illustration, the variety of experiences of its author and his remarkable ability to say something of interest and importance to generations of 'ordinary' men and women"
