| Abstract: | The dissertation is devoted to the concepts that appeared in the popular handbooks during the great socio-economic transformations of the second half of the 19th century. The analyzed source material concerns various aspects of everyday life: health and hygiene, work and finances, shaping one's own character, education and interpersonal relations. Source material contains both works by native authors and foreign translations, with particular emphasis on books by Samuel Smiles.
An essential aspect of this literature is the idea of self-improvement:. the assumption that success in life can be achieved by one's own efforts. The self-improvement programs, proposed by the authors, were analyzed both in terms of the authors' individual concepts as well as their complementarity and consistency in relation to each other. Another important aspect of the work is the discussion of the extent to which the counseling of the era responded to the need for guidance from the new middle class and groups aspiring to it.
In addition to the analysis of guidance programs, the work discusses the specificity of the guide as a source material, its place on the book market of the era and the publishing models in which this type of literature has functioned. Selected profiles of the authors of the guides were also presented. |