1. Introduction While self-help literature is not part of any literary canon nor has any pretensions to be, it is worthy of study because of its cultural importance and its expansion as a socioeconomic phenomenon. (1) The pursuit of happiness, which is the subject of numerous treatises and self-help books, is in the US an inalienable right embedded in the Declaration of Independence (The Declaration 1979). Over the past decade, the study of happiness, which used to be the domain of philosophers, therapists and 'gurus', has further developed into a university discipline. It is possible nowadays to find 'professors of happiness' at leading universities, self-improvement and 'quality of life' institutes all over the world, and thousands of research papers on the topic (Bond 2003). Happiness even has its own journal, the Journal of Happiness Studies (2) and there is also an online World Database of Happiness. (3)
