Dale Carnegie was an American writer and lecturer and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. Born into poverty on November 24, 1888, in Maryville, Missouri, Carnegie worked as a traveling salesman before teaching public speaking at a YMCA. His seminal self-help book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, was one of the best-selling self-help books of all time, and won him a national following. It enabled him to expand the Dale Carnegie Institute into countries around the world. He died in 1955 in Queens, New York.

Mitch Horowitz, who abridged and introduced this volume, is the PEN Award-winning author of books including Occult America and The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality. The Washington Post says Mitch "treats esoteric ideas and movements with an even-handed intellectual studiousness that is too often lost in today's raised-voice discussions." Follow him @MitchHorowitz.