Past caring

In Competition No. 2509 you were asked to provide an extract from a Victorian self-help book.

Self-help by Samuel Smiles was a hit when it was published in 1859. Almost 150 years later it is described on Amazon.com as ‘the precursor of today’s motivational and self-help literature’. This strikes me as a rather desperate attempt by marketing people to tap into the seemingly insatiable appetite of modern self-help addicts. They may be in for disappointment, though. There are no quick fixes from Smiles, who preaches hard work, thrift and perseverance, a message that won’t go down well with today’s debt-laden, I-want-it-and-I-want-it-now generation. There is a predictable absence of women as inspirational examples in the book (except as men’s ‘help-mates’). D.A. Prince, who gets this week’s bonus fiver, captures well the lot of the fairer sex in what could be a 19th-century version of that contemporary self-help classic If I’m So Wonderful, Why Am I Still Single? The other winners, printed below, are rewarded with £25 apiece.