Today, self-help has mushroomed into something like a $10 billion industry: There’s a book (or three) on every one of life’s tribulations, alternately written by academics, charlatans, and others with advice to spare. It became an international best seller, and the cult of personal improvement was born. But the self-help genre is thought to have had its true start in 1859, when Samuel Smiles, a second-rate Scottish journalist and doctor, published Self-Help, With Illustrations of Character and Conduct.

Political pamphlets, epic poems, and contemporary novels can all offer insight into how to live-or how not to. Any book can be a self-help book, depending on how it’s read.