Illustrated with Two Steel Portraits, and numeros Engravings on Wood .

“It is a singular fate that some of the world’s greatest benefactors should pass from the world with their history comparatively unnoticed and we rightly rejoice when the claims of any of them are vindicated — when, from the hidden company of the Brindleys and Watts, men risen from the ranks to do world-wide service, and incidently to be the architects of their country’s later greatness, we can obtain the authentic history of such a creator as George Stephenson. It is not too much to any, that by Mr. Smiles, who has performed this office with eminent success, a considerable void is filled up in the page of modern history. We see the vast proportions of our modern achievements, and the epic story of this age of iron, more than half comprised in the feats of its strongest and most successful worker. The worker himself, with his noble simplicity and energy, his zeal for his kind, his native-born gentleness, and indomitable tenacity, would probably have been eminent in any age or condition of society; but, in virtue of his actual achievements and the obstacles he surmounted, of his struggles and triumphs, we may designate him a hero, and ask in defense of this arbitrary title, what real conditions of heroism were wanting?’ — The Times.

“We have read this book with unmingled satisfaction. We hardly ever remember to have read a biography so thoroughly unaffected. There is no pushing forward of the author himself — he never comes between us and his subject. The book is an artless attempt to set out the character and career of one of the most ingenious, honest resolute, homely, and kindhearted of human beings. We thank Mr. Smiles for having made the man walk before us in a most life-like picture. The entire style of the work is unambitious lucid thoroughly manly, and good.” — Saturday Review .

“We should like to see this biography in the hands of all our young men. One breathes a healthy, bracing atmosphere in reading this book. It sets before us a fine instance of success in life attained purely in the exercise of genuine qualities. There was no sham about George Stephenson….He was a great and good man and we can give the ‘Life’ no higher praise than to say that it is worthy of its subject. Mr. Smiles is so anxious to place the character and career of Stephenson justly before his readers, that he quite forgets himself.....We do not know that there ever lived an individual to whom each separate inhabitant of Great Britain owes so much of real tangible advantage.” — Fraser’s Magazine.

“It is the fate of few men, even of those who are the most signal public benefactors, to be known and appreciated by the generation in which they live. The fame of George Stephenson spread slowly, and, great as it has at last become, we cannot question that it will continue to increase with time. Not only is he a surprising example of a laborer raising himself to wealth and eminence without one solitary advantage except what he derived from his own genius; but the direction which that genius took has stamped his name upon the most wonderful achievement of our age He died, leaving behind him the highest character for simplicity, kindness of heart, and absolute freedom from all sordidness of disposition. His virtues are very beautifully illustrated, and by no means exaggerated, in his Life by Mr. Smiles…..There is scarcely a single page of the work which is not suggestive, and on which it would not be profitable to institute inquiry into the results of past experience as compared with present practice. The whole ground is novel and of the highest mterest.” — Quarterly Review.