Self Help; With Illustrations Of Conduct And Perseverance Second Edition Posted: August 10th, 2015 — $8.45 For the much of his career, Smiles advocated individual self improvement. Smiles’ self-help books have been cited as influential on the New Thought Movement in late 19th century America and England, and, in particular, on the career of the New Thought author Orison Swett Marden, who said that his early ambition had been to become “the Samuel Smiles of America.” This classic book has been called “the bible of mid-Victorian liberalism”.