Excerpt from The Autobiography of Samuel Smiles, LL. D Dr Smiles' first book was published in 1836, and he continued to write till nearly the close of the century. The period of his literary labours, therefore, is almost exactly coincident with the reign of the late Queen Victoria, the age pre-eminently of mechanical invention. Dr Smiles' achievement is that by common consent he is recognised as the authorised and pious chronicler of the men who founded the industrial greatness of England. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.