Compendium Perfectum, or, The Compleat Person:
English Self-Help Books of the 17th and 18th Centuries

Complete

1a. Having all its parts or members; comprising the full number or amount; embracing all the requisite items, details, topics, etc.; entire, full.

 5. Of persons: Fully equipped or endowed; perfect, accomplished, consummate; esp. in reference to a particular art or pursuit, as a complete actor, horseman, merchant. Now arch.
Oxford English Dictonary, 2nd ed. (1989)

Although one could argue that the genre dates back millennia, Samuel Smiles coined a new term when he published Self-Help in 1859 consequently opening the floodgates to authors attempting to solve the world’s problems one narcissistic step at a time. If one searches the term “self help” in Google today, almost fifty-eight million matches will be returned. An arguably large segment of the self-help phenomena involves books that assist us in specific areas such as personal finance, knitting, or sex. The “For Dummies” publisher alone has over seventy-eight thousand titles currently available on Amazon.com.

This is not a modern day marvel. A vast array of how-to books was available to readers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Starting with the premise that these books purport to be the final word on the matter, examples of early manuals, templates, recipe books, diagrams, and “cheat sheets” that aid the reader to become healthy, wealthy, and wise are grouped by general subject area. Whether the subject is art, sport, law, language, food, gardening, or pest control, these works were designed to help answer questions and aid the individual in every aspect of life without the need of a master or tutor.

This exhibition in no way claims to be complete.

Nina Schnieder
Head Cataloguer
May 2008