How to Win Friends and Influence People was first published in 1937
in an edition of only five thousand copies. Neither Dale Carnegie nor
the publishers, Simon and Schuster, anticipated more than this
modest sale. To their amazement, the book became an overnight
sensation, and edition after edition rolled off the presses to keep up
with the increasing public demand. Now to Win Friends and
InfEuence People took its place in publishing history as one of the
all-time international best-sellers. It touched a nerve and filled a
human need that was more than a faddish phenomenon of post-
Depression days, as evidenced by its continued and uninterrupted
sales into the eighties, almost half a century later.