Yesterday my sister-in-law Bonnie informed me that the first ever self-help book was written in 1859 by a Scottish man named Samuel Smiles(!). It was titled “Self-Help”, and the first sentence was “Heaven helps those who help themselves”.
The rest, as they say, is history! Amazing…
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3 responses to “The Origins of Self-Help (no joke)”
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He stole that quote from Benjamin Franklin, who was actually a deist. So much for those Christian self-help book!
Smiles was certainly the first to use “Self-Help” in the title. However, there are earlier claims of self-help books. One called “Secreta Secretorum” (Secret of Secrets) was published by hand (before printing presses) for over 500 years running – and it in turn was an English translation of an older Islamic mystic text.
If you wanted to get into the oral traditions of self-help, you’d have to go back and study what is now called “Huna”, a very old philosophy which predates Egyptian and traces are found all over this planet – including England.