The original Pushing To The Front was published in 1894, but was revised and expanded into the two-volume work of 1911. At 70 chapters and close to 900 pages, in its size and scope it could safely claim to being an encyclopaedia of success, and has arguably not been overtaken.

The publishers describe the book as "full of the most fascinating romances of achievement under difficulties, of obscure beginnings and triumphant endings, of stirring stories of struggles and triumphs." Indeed, Marden received thousands of letters from readers saying how it had brought them back to college, back to vocations they had abandoned and helped them come back from business failures.

Though Horatio Alger inspired many with his poor-boy-makes-good stories, Orison Swett Marden must be considered the real founder of the American success movement. Pushing To The Front, which was his first book, was inspired by Samuel Smiles' Self-Help, the seminal self-improvement manual, which Marden had discovered in an attic. Though twice the size of Smiles' tome, it is written in a similarly enjoyable style and sticks to the theme of "how men and women have seized common occasions and made them great". Where it differs to Smiles' work is that it has references to successful women of the day such as Jane Addams and Julia Ward Howe, and Marden refers to the dawning 20th century as 'the century of the woman', bringing unparalleled opportunities for young girls.

Pushing To The Front also inspires the reader not to make the most money, but pursue a career which excites, enriches intellectually and which uses your talents to the full.

Overcoming difficulties

Most persistent among the themes of the book is that character is built by adversity, or as the saying goes, Kites rise against, not with, the wind. Marden points out that "poverty and hardship have rocked the cradle of the giants of the race", drawing to our attention such people as:

• Horace Greeley (1811-72) who showed up in New York city as a penniless printer and became founder of the weekly New Yorker and the daily New York Tribune, which had a huge impact on American public opinion.
• The writer and champion of the poor William Cobbett (1763-1835), a farm boy who taught himself to read and write and became a major English political figure.
• Elihu Burritt (1810-79), the Conneticut man known as the 'the Learned Blacksmith', who during spare moments at the forge began a program of self-study which enabled him to become a linguist, writer and mathematician. A typical entry in his diary: "Tuesday, June 19, 60 lines Hebrew, 30 Danish, 10 lines Bohemian, 9 lines Polish, 15 names of stars, 10 hours forging."
• Michael Faraday (1791-1867), arguably the greatest experimental physicist, who as a boy in London lived above a stable and made money through lending out newspapers at a penny a piece. Apprenticed to a bookbinder, he read articles on electricity from the Encyclopaedia Brittanica and begun his own experiments. The scientist Sir Humphrey Davy made Faraday his assistant, enabling him to meet some of the great scientific minds of his day.
• Frederick Douglass (1817-95), the slave-cum-abolitionist "who started in life with less than nothing for he did not own his own body". Plantation rules forbade slaves to learn reading or writing, but he somehow learned the alphabet from scraps of paper and medicine bottle labels. Later, he literally bought his own freedom (at a cost of $750).

Necessity is the mother not simply of invention, but of success. "Failure often leans a man to success by arousing his latent energy, by firing a dormant purpose, by awakening powers which were sleeping." Prison, Marden notes, has often been the rouser of this latent energy: Sir Walter Raleigh wrote his History of the World during his 13-year imprisonment; Luther made his translation of the Bible while behind bars; and Dante wrote while exiled. Cervantes took up his pen while in jail in Madrid, producing Don Quixote. In more recent times, we think of Nelson Mandela on Robben Island, writing his memorable autobiography and planning a new South Africa.

Jewish people have been oppressed through history, Marden observes, yet they have produced some of the finest music and writing and made cities thrive.

It took the plague and the great fire to destroy London before it rose up as a fine city.

Marden recalls Samuel Smiles' simple words on the matter: "If there were no difficulties there would be no success". Burdens make us try harder to lift them, and get stronger as a result, while the person who has none need do little.

Persistence and grit

Marden notes that Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire took twenty years to write, Webster spent thirty-six years on his dictionary, Stephenson, to perfect his locomotive, labored for fifteen years. Harvey worked for eight years before publishing his work on the circulation of the blood, then had to wait twenty-five before the theory was finally accepted. Cyrus Field spent a decade of heartbreaking setbacks before the transatlantic cable was laid; everyone lost faith in the idea except him, but he believed that instantaneous communication across oceans was a necessity, not an option. The great violinist Gerardini was asked how long it took him to learn to play. His answer: twelve hours a day for twenty years. On his 'genius', Dickens said this: "My own invention, such as it is, I assure you, would never have served me as it has but for the habit of commonplace, humble, patient, toiling attention."

Thoreau's first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, sold so poorly that the publishers returned most of the copies to him. He wrote in his diary: "I have nine hundred volumes in my diary, seven hundred of which I wrote myself." A few years later came the success of Walden. One more: Columbus was rejected by scores of kings, queens and nobles before finding the sponsorship to sail to the New World.

Marden says, "Show me a really great triumph that is not the reward of persistence." Genius, when you look more closely at it, usually turns out to be the sum of uncommon dedication to a task.

Calling

Don't enter a profession just because it is respectable, he suggests, or because one of your parents succeeded in it. "The world does not dictate what you shall do", he points out, "but it does require that you be a master in whatever you undertake." With definiteness of aim, or the knowledge that what you are doing is worth your time you will excel in the task. A job may earn you money, but a vocation earns your self-respect.

Final word

Orison Swett Marden has for a long time been better known as 'founder of Success magazine', but now that journal is defunct there will hopefully be a swing back to recognition of his writing and discovery of his books by the general public. Copies are not hard to track down on the Internet, but tend to be expensive. If you are serious about building up your success library, however, it is worth the money. These volumes are something to hold on to. It is easy to see how the book electrified audiences of its era, for you cannot come away from its pages without being inspired to greater things, or to stick at what you have embarked upon.