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. How to Win Friends and Influence People took its
place in publishing history as one of the all-time international bestsellers. 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.

Dale Carnegie used to say that it was easier to make a million dollars than to put a phrase into the
English language. How to Win Friends and Influence People became such a phrase, quoted, paraphrased,
parodied, used in innumerable contexts from political cartoon to novels. The book itself was translated into
almost every known written language. Each generation has discovered it anew and has found it relevant.