The original edition of this work, first printer as two volumes in 1861, has long been out of print and is now a collector's item. Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was a popular writer of “edifying” books, in the Victorian sense, whose best-known work, Self-Help (published in 1859), had sold almost a quarter of a million copies by 1900. As a British counterpart of the writers of American “success literature” of the Victorian age, his writing passed largely out of fashion after 1910, and the Smiles ethics became synonymous with the pejorative use of “Victorianism.” Smiles, however, also wrote substantial biographies for those who aspired to achieve, and thought these Lives he provided an account and a philosophy. He also provided a context making the Lives he provided an count and a philosophy of an individual achievement, He also provided a context making the Lives a contribution to the social history of technology.
This fully annotated edition of the Lives of Engineers, is a firm the first edition published by John Murray of London, and illustrated with a number, of contemporary full-page portraits and many engravings throughout the text. The editor was written an introduction and also a bibliography.