Napoleon Hill’s Continuing Bestselling Self-Help Books

How to Think and Grow Rich | Law of Success

Of the triumvirate of key self-help books in the 20th century, Napoleon Hill’s classic Think and Grow Rich rocketed to the top of the bestseller lists in 1937 and has continued as a bestseller to the present day. Think and Grow Rich has reportedly sold more than 30 million copies since 1937.

Born in 1883 in a two-room log cabin in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains, Napoleon Hill worked as a newspaper reporter to finance his way through Georgetown University Law School. The quality of his reporting prompted Robert Taylor, a magazine publisher, to employ Hill to write a series of success stories of famous men, starting with Andrew Carnegie. Carnegie was so impressed from the interview that he commissioned Hill to complete what would become a twenty-year assignment – interviewing over 500 of the most successful men in America in order to distill from their experiences a common success formula.

Hill published his first interpretation of this individual achievement philosophy in 1928 as the multi-volume Law of Success, exactly twenty years after the Carnegie interview. Think and Grow Rich was a modern abridgment of that set, published with the purpose of inspiring the nation to throw off the fears of the Great Depression. What he achieved was a landmark volume, one which has set the bar to measure all other self-help books against. Only two other books have achieved anywhere near this book’s following: Wattle’s Science of Getting Rich, and Haanel’s Master Key System.

Hill described his efforts in an essay “You Can Work Your Own Miracles”:

“For twenty odd years I was forced to struggle, in mastering the problems incidental to my work in organizing the world’s first practical philosophy of success. First, I was forced to struggle in preparing myself with the necessary knowledge to produce the philosophy. Secondly, I was forced to struggle to maintain myself economically while doing the research necessary to organize the philosophy. Then I met with still greater necessity to struggle while gaining recognition from the world for myself and the philosophy.

“Twenty years of struggle without any direct financial compensation is an experience not calculated to give one sustained hope, but it was the price I had to pay for a philosophy which was destined to benefit untold numbers of people, many of whom were not born when I began my work.

“Discouraging? Heartbreaking? Not at all, for I recognized from the beginning that out of my struggle would come triumph and victory in proportion to the labors invested in my task. In this hope I have not been disappointed, but I have been overwhelmed with the bountiful manner in which the world has responded and paid me tribute for the long years of struggle that went into my work.

“Also, I have gained from my struggle something of still greater and more profound value. It is recognition that through my struggles I have reached deeply into the spiritual wells of my soul, and there I have found powers available for every purpose I may desire -powers I never knew I possessed, and never would have discovered except by the means of struggle!

“From my experiences with struggle I discovered that the Creator never singles out an individual for an important service to mankind without first testing him, through struggle, in proportion to the nature of the service he is to render. Thus, through struggle, I learned to interpret the laws, purposes, and working plans of the Creator as they related to me and to mankind in general.”

And that is what makes Hill’s work so important. Only two other authors of his century presented self-help students with a certain plan for their life to put it on a chosen track. This is what places Hill with Wattles and Haanel in the triumvirate of 20th century self-help classics. These all cover the same key points, and give the same answers to life’s questions. Hill, in fact, credits Haanel with his success through a personal letter years before Think and Grow Rich was written.

How to Think and Grow Rich

Also available from Lulu.com as paperback, 347 pages

Law of Success in 16 Lessons

Napoleon Hill's First Classic: The Law of Success in Sixteen Lessons

Napoleon Hill’s Law of Success - A Review

Before his Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill had already created this 16-volume master work, exactly 20 years after Andrew Carnegie commissioned Hill to a find the secrets of over 500 successful businessmen and millionaires.
In 16 lessons, this book lays out the primary principles necessary to gaining success, wealth, and happiness.This edition has been edited from the original to fit into a single volume.
Review:

While Napoleon Hill continued to refine his understanding of the Law of Success, and even expanded it in later years, it was still this key work which changed his life and those of others around him.

As you read the extensive descriptions of each point, you can see where Hill pulled the material for his "Think and Grow Rich". As well, you'll find numerous illustrative stories in each section which give practical applications of those points.

And it's Hill's interviews of over 500 key statesmen, entrepreneurs, and industry leaders which formed the backbone to his wealth of knowledge for each point. It's a known fact that the continual best seller books are the result of often life-long studies into both the literature and actual lives of the people who lived in any time.

Hill's Law of Success isn't commonly known, but is becoming more appreciated as people find out it exists. They often have had their life changed by following his smaller runaway bestseller, and now want to dig deeper into the underlying theory and knowledge of how these systems work.

Along with Troward and Haanel, this work should be on anyone's library bookshelf of success books. With these, you'll get a very full and complete understanding of how the Universe actually works and how it can fill your every want and need.

One key point to this revision, is that it removes only non-essential points such that the rest can fit into a single volume. These points were those comments and illustrative poems which made it into 16 separate volumes, but weren't necessary to understanding the essential principles. Having a single book for your library (or computer drive) makes accessing this data even easier.

Paperback, 459 pages.
Available from Lulu.com

Napoleon Hill’s Law of Success

Masterwork in Understanding Self-Help - The Complete Thomas Troward Collection

The Complete Thomas Troward Collection

Welcome to this singularly complete collection of Judge Thomas Troward’s works.

The result of studying his works is to gain an intense understanding of the underlying laws this universe operates from, quite apart from personal revelations which are welcome distractions as you read.
I’ve collected these works from years of research. I found that Troward was a singular source-point for a great deal, if not all, of American self-help classics. Charles F. Haanel (Master Key System) and Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich, Law of Success) both quote Troward and amplify the underlying principles he stated in his lectures, as well as other writings. So in this collection, you have the original works which greatly forwarded the New Thought philosophic movement. Historically, had Troward been absent, New Thought would not have gained the impetus and presence it has enjoyed up to the present.

Another point to keep in mind is that Troward wrote from a decidedly Christian view. All his comparatives are with and against Biblical references, ultimately. While he learned Eastern languages and studied all the Indian religions’ Bibles in that native language (and the Jewish and Christian Bibles in Hebrew and Greek), he lectured in the Queen’s English. So for a modern American to try to simply read his works can be tantamount to trying to understand original Shakespeare straight up. There is my reason for suggesting study, not reading. The only simpler approach I would suggest is to read Hill, then Haanel, then Troward. This backwards approach gives you progressively more difficult English to work through while you already have the simple principles to hand. While you can read Hill a page at a time, Haanel is best studied by the paragraph. Troward seems best digested by the sentence. With these caveats in mind, the depth of Troward’s understanding will then be more fully accessible to you.

- - - -

Thomas Troward was Her Majesty’s Assistant Commissioner and later Divisional Judge of the North Indian Punjab from 1869 until his retirement in 1896. It is this later period for which he is best remembered and most celebrated; in it he was at last able to devote himself to his great interest in metaphysical and esoteric studies.

He had already thoroughly digested all of the sacred books of the oriental religions and they had certainly influenced his spiritual ideas. While in India, he learned the language of the country.
He studied all of the bibles of the world, including the Koran, Hindu scriptures and books of Raja Yoga. His studies in original Hebrew provided the foundation for his book, Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning.

The philosopher William James characterized Troward’s Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science as "far and away the ablest statement of philosophy I have met, beautiful in its sustained clearness of thought and style, a really classic statement."

On May 16, 1916, at the age of 69, Thomas Troward passed from this plane. He will be recognized in history as a contributing influence to Religious Science, the New Thought Movement in the United States and Great Britain, and also, to some extent, to the more liberal ideas of the Church of England.
This book contains the full text of: