I am fascinated by Samuel Smiles' stories of 18th and 19th century engineers, their lives and their works. Smiles was an eminent Victorian who focused on people who generally came from humble beginnings to invent and build many of the first machines, structures or works that we take so much for granted today. These are some of the key people of the industrial revolution in England and Scotland.

My favorite volumes in the series are the one on Boulton and Watt (they turned the steam engine into a practical device and built a large manufactory to produce them) and the one on George and Robert Stephenson (they made the first practical steam locomotive and pioneered the construction of the first serious railroads). These stories give the reader a rich context for the characters' lives, what it was like to live in those times, and the struggles they faced in inventing their machines and worse, convincing the rest of the world that they were worth building.

I especially like the numerous beautiful engravings of the engineers, their works and the countrysides in which they worked and lived. And I like the perspective of Smiles, writing in victorian times, with victorian values, and without much regard for the rest of the world outside of England and Scotland. An intriguingly narrow view to me, a American boy who knows little about the rest of the world.

Though I found the volumes on the canal, dock and bridge builders (Brindley, Rennie and Telford) a bit on the dry side, they were also fascinating.

There are so many other biographies that I want to read. I am dismayed however, that I may not be able to find another biographer who will allow me to re-live the rest of these heroes lives as fully as Samuel Smiles has with his engineers.

this is the one book that you really need to read to make you dream reality.