Off to the Chapter House last night to see Kate Williams on Emma Hamilton, her Nelson and her "Attitudes" as part of Wimbledon's inaugral BookFest.Rather sportingly, she appeared in period costume and delivered a choreographed lecture accompanied by a dancer. I was entranced by the audacious combination of didactics and décolletage, and left clutching a signed copy of her magnum opus in my sweaty palm.
BBC IPlayer
ReplyDeleteHistorian Kate Williams investigates the success and lasting legacy of Samuel Smiles' 1859 book Self Help.
It outsold both Darwin's On the Origin of Species and Mill's On Liberty, also published that year, and gave birth to the idea that we can all achieve greatness through the application of sheer hard work.