Cambridge Library Collection - Technology
1 primary work • 8 total works
Volume 3
A political and social reformer, Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was also a noted biographer in the Victorian period. Following the engineer's death in 1848, Smiles published his highly successful Life of George Stephenson in 1857 (also reissued in this series). His interest in engineering evolved and he began working on biographies of Britain's most notable engineers from the Roman to the Victorian era. Originally published in three volumes between 1861 and 1862, this work contains detailed and lively accounts of the educations, careers and pioneering work of seven of Britain's most accomplished engineers. These volumes stand as a remarkable undertaking, advancing not only the genre, but also the author's belief in what hard work could achieve. Volume 3 includes a revised version of Smiles's biography of George Stephenson (1781-1848), as well as a biography of his equally famous son, Robert (1803-59).
A political and social reformer, Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was also a noted biographer in the Victorian period. Following the engineer's death in 1848, Smiles published his highly successful Life of George Stephenson in 1857 (also reissued in this series). His interest in engineering evolved and he began working on biographies of Britain's most notable engineers from the Roman to the Victorian era. Originally published in three volumes between 1861 and 1862, this work contains detailed and lively accounts of the educations, careers and pioneering work of seven of Britain's most accomplished engineers. These volumes stand as a remarkable undertaking, advancing not only the genre, but also the author's belief in what hard work could achieve.
One of the most popular Victorian writers, Samuel Smiles (1812–1904) made his name in 1859 with the original self-improvement manual Self-Help. His highly successful multi-volume Lives of the Engineers (also reissued in this series) contained biographies of men who had, like him, achieved greatness not through privilege but through hard work. Left incomplete at his death, edited by the social theorist Thomas Mackay (1849–1912) and first published in 1905, his autobiography opens with a vivid description of the Scottish garrison town of his birth during the Napoleonic wars. In his later years he was a vocal supporter of state education, and the value of education was a constant theme throughout his life. He remembers his schooldays here with clarity, writing that 'a good education is equivalent to a good fortune'. Straightforward and unpretentious, this book will be of interest to historians and readers fascinated by the Victorian drive for self-improvement.
This biography of the civil engineer Thomas Telford (1757-1834) was published in 1867 by Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), the author of Self-Help and of other biographies of engineers and innovators. Smiles had already written about Telford's life and achievements in Volume 2 of his Lives of the Engineers (which is also reissued in this series), but in returning to the topic he adds to this new edition an introductory section (taken from Volume 1 of Lives of the Engineers) on the history of roads in Britain, from prehistoric trackways, via the Romans, to the modern road-building system pioneered by John Metcalf (the extraordinary 'Blind Jack of Knaresborough') and Telford himself. This illustrated work gives engaging accounts from earlier writers of the perils of road travel, and also deals in detail with Telford's own career as a builder of roads, bridges and canals.
A political and social reformer, Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was also a noted biographer in the Victorian period. Following the engineer's death in 1848, Smiles published his highly successful Life of George Stephenson in 1857 (also reissued in this series). His interest in engineering evolved and he began working on biographies of Britain's most notable engineers from the Roman to the Victorian era. Originally published in three volumes between 1861 and 1862, this work contains detailed and lively accounts of the educations, careers and pioneering work of seven of Britain's most accomplished engineers. These volumes stand as a remarkable undertaking, advancing not only the genre, but also the author's belief in what hard work could achieve. Volume 1 charts the engineering of early roads, embankments, bridges, harbours and ferries, as well as the lives of the engineers Sir Hugh Myddelton (c.1560-1631) and James Brindley (1716-72).
A political and social reformer, Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was also a noted biographer in the Victorian period, paying particular attention to engineers. His first biography was of George Stephenson (1781-1848), whom he met at the opening of the North Midland Railway in 1840. After Stephenson died, Smiles wrote a memoir of him for Eliza Cook's Journal. With the permission of Stephenson's son, Robert, this evolved into the first full biography of the great engineer, published in 1857 and reissued here in its revised third edition. This detailed and lively account of Stephenson's life, which proved very popular, charts his education and youth, his crucial contribution to the development of Britain's railways, and his relationships with many notables of the Victorian world. It remains of interest to the general reader as well as historians of engineering, transport and business.
A political and social reformer, Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was also a noted biographer in the Victorian period. Following the engineer's death in 1848, Smiles published his highly successful Life of George Stephenson in 1857 (also reissued in this series). His interest in engineering evolved and he began working on biographies of Britain's most notable engineers from the Roman to the Victorian era. Originally published in three volumes between 1861 and 1862, this work contains detailed and lively accounts of the educations, careers and pioneering work of seven of Britain's most accomplished engineers. These volumes stand as a remarkable undertaking, advancing not only the genre, but also the author's belief in what hard work could achieve. Volume 3 includes a revised version of Smiles's biography of George Stephenson (1781-1848), as well as a biography of his equally famous son, Robert (1803-59).
A political and social reformer, Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was also a noted biographer in the Victorian period. Following the engineer's death in 1848, Smiles published his highly successful Life of George Stephenson in 1857 (also reissued in this series). His interest in engineering evolved and he began working on biographies of Britain's most notable engineers from the Roman to the Victorian era. Originally published in three volumes between 1861 and 1862, this work contains detailed and lively accounts of the educations, careers and pioneering work of seven of Britain's most accomplished engineers. These volumes stand as a remarkable undertaking, advancing not only the genre, but also the author's belief in what hard work could achieve. Volume 2 includes accounts of the lives of three important engineers of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries: John Smeaton (1724-92), John Rennie (1761-1821) and Thomas Telford (1757-1834).