Written along the lines of the author's Self-Help and Character, this book shows readers what can be accomplished in life and labor by honest force of will and steady perseverance. "The chapters on Over Brain-work and the Conditions of Health may be of use to those who work with their Brains too much and their Physical System too little. This part of the work has been to a certain extent the result of personal experience." Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) was a zealous advocate of material progress based on individual enterprise and free trade. From 1845 to 1866 he was engaged in railway administration, and in 1857 he published a life of the inventor and founder of the railways, George Stephenson. Best known for his didactic work Self-Help (1859), which, with its successors, Character (1871), Thrift (1875), and Duty (1880), enshrined the basic Victorian values associated with the "gospel of work."

Dr. Alan Gribben, a foremost Twain scholar, made waves in 1980 with the publication of Mark Twain's Library, a study that exposed for the first time the breadth of Twain's reading and influences. Prior to Gribben's work, much of Twain's reading history was assumed lost, but through dogged searching Gribben was able to source much of Twain's library. Mark Twain's Literary Resources is a much-expanded examination of Twain's library and readings. Volume I included Gribben's reflections on the work involved in cataloging Twain's reading and analysis of Twain's influences and opinions. This volume, long awaited, is an in-depth and comprehensive accounting of Twain's literary history. Each work read or owned by Twain is listed, along with information pertaining to editions, locations, and more. Gribben also includes scholarly annotations that explain the significance of many works, making this volume of Mark Twain's Literary Resources one of the most important additions to our understanding of America's greatest author.