Marrin's Bookshop

Synopsis

With illustrations of character and conduct. fifty-fifth thousand.

Item Description

8vo. 7 x 5 inches. xii + 363 + [1] pp. Bound in maroon presentation binding, decorated with gilt block of College arms and blind stamped decorated borders, spine in compartments with raised bands, decorated gilt with gilt titles. Inner dentelles. All edges gilt. A little wear to edges and corners and light foxing of preliminaries, but otherwise a very good copy. Armourial 1862 prize label of King's College School. Early reprint of the first edition of the best selling title, Self-Help (1859), followed by several other books on the virtues of self improvement, which were favourite titles for school prizes. The Scottish author, Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was also well known for his biographies of famous industrialists, especially Lives of the Engineers (five volumes, 1862). A handsomely bound school prize copy of King's College School, founded in 1829 as a junior part of King's College, London in the Strand, where it was originally housed. It moved to Wimbledon in 1897 and still exists as a private day school.