Her advice manual, "A Dummies' Guide to the New York Art World," which will also incorporate research conducted in Croatia, is to be published in December.

At one medical school, upperclassmen even provided new matriculants with an advice manual titled "Pimping and the Art of Self-Defense."

"Gospel" was, as Mr. Nasaw describes it, "a primer on the workings of political economy and an advice manual for millionaires."

Books about the Internet boom and its riches are well represented, as are advice manuals for managers and exuberant forecasts about the stock market.

An early version of the modern self-help book, the 18th-century British conduct book drew on many literary traditions, such as advice manuals and religious narratives.

More recently, a few scholars have argued that conduct books should be differentiated more carefully and that some of them-such as Wollstonecraft's Thoughts-transformed traditional female advice manuals into "proto-feminist tracts".

Bell (who could find no advice manuals for widowers) read the books written for widows with particular fascination.

Unlike the autobiographies by Mr. Iacocca and Mr. Welch, which sold in the millions, Mr. Bossidy's book is an advice manual, traditionally a tougher sell.

Inspired by American advice manuals, these books often reflected on the gendered nature of society, drawing divisions between the 'masculine' dining room and 'feminine' drawing room.

And Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster, recently warned his party in an advice manual that in education, "politically and rhetorically Democrats have left us in the dust."