An ambition, written down.
Think and Grow Rich
Hill’s 1937 book turns desire, persistence and organized effort into a program of personal achievement. Practical suggestions about planning sit beside claims about faith, autosuggestion and the powers of the mind. Read the confidence of its voice closely, and keep a separate place for questions about its evidence.
Begin reading
01 / A place to begin
A spoiler-light introduction.
Desire meets a plan.
Hill’s 1937 book turns desire, persistence and organized effort into a program of personal achievement. Practical suggestions about planning sit beside claims about faith, autosuggestion and the powers of the mind. Read the confidence of its voice closely, and keep a separate place for questions about its evidence.
Napoleon Hill (1883–1970) wrote motivational books and lectured on success. Think and Grow Rich appeared in 1937, after his longer Law of Success course. The book presents a philosophy of achievement through anecdotes and emphatic instructions. Its historical influence does not establish that its proposed mental mechanisms work.
Treat the wealth claims and metaphysical mechanisms as Hill’s assertions, not verified science or financial guidance. Anecdotes about successful people do not guarantee results for another reader. Avoid presenting poverty, illness or other circumstances as proof of defective thinking.
Sources: Penguin Random House: original-text Classic Edition · Penguin Random House: revised edition
Reader note
Treat the wealth claims and metaphysical mechanisms as Hill’s assertions, not verified science or financial guidance. Anecdotes about successful people do not guarantee results for another reader. Avoid presenting poverty, illness or other circumstances as proof of defective thinking.
- First publication
- 1937
- Form
- Historical motivational nonfiction
- Original language
- English
- Publication note
- First published in 1937. Penguin’s Classic Edition page explicitly identifies the original 1937 publication. The Foundation also places the book in 1937.
02 / Ways of looking
Choose a reading lens.
Three original prompts. Pick the question you want to carry into the book.
Your reading prompt
Instructions
Notice the kind of statement.
Mark a practical instruction, a historical anecdote and a claim about unseen mental forces in different ways.
Evidence
Ask what would support a mechanism.
When a passage explains an outcome through faith or autosuggestion, what evidence would establish that explanation?
Revision
Compare the wording.
Place one chapter beside Pell’s update. Which changes clarify an older term, and which change the argument’s historical voice?
03 / The copy desk
Find the edition for you.
Outside sellers and libraries handle purchases and loans. They determine stock, prices, condition, eligibility, and waits. Routes and bibliographic details checked .
All 3 reading routes shown.
Think and Grow Rich: The Classic Edition
Mass Market Paperback
Choose this to encounter the book’s historical wording before comparing modern updates.
- Publisher
- Tarcher / Penguin Random House
- ISBN
- 9780143110163
- Edition date
- 2016-07-05
- Pages
- 416
- Extra material
- Publisher explicitly reproduces the full original 1937 text. This is a 2016 reprint, not a 1937 first printing. Full 1937 text, according to the publisher; 416-page mass market paperback. A new introduction or named editor has not been established for this ISBN.
Selected mass market paperback ISBN 9780143110163. Check the external provider’s current terms.
Exact ISBN discovery. Compare condition, binding, edition and delivery terms with the individual seller.
Title-level discovery of the Penguin digital edition. The provider displays a print ISBN; confirm the licensed format with your own library. No selected print holding is implied.
Think and Grow Rich — revised and updated for the 21st century
Paperback
Choose this for contemporary examples, while keeping the 1937 text nearby to see what an update changes.
- Publisher
- Tarcher / Penguin Random House
- ISBN
- 9781585424337
- Edition date
- 2005-08-18
- Pages
- 320
- Extra material
- Modern revision and update. Contemporary examples and explanations are interwoven into the text; do not label this the unchanged 1937 text. Revised and updated by Arthur R. Pell; Modern examples and clarification of older terms; 320-page paperback.
Selected paperback ISBN 9781585424337. Check the external provider’s current terms.
Exact ISBN discovery. Compare condition, binding, edition and delivery terms with the individual seller.
Search Think and Grow Rich and Napoleon Hill through your participating library. Local licences, borrowing eligibility and availability vary; this does not establish a holding of the selected print ISBN.
Historical text · rights below
Read a historical edition at the Internet Sacred Text Archive
The host’s historical 1938 Ralston Society text, separate from Pell’s modern update.
The host identifies this specific 1938 text as public domain in the United States because the copyright was not renewed. This is the host’s determination; check local law outside the US.
Reading sourceThe host identifies this specific 1938 text as public domain in the United States because the copyright was not renewed. This is the host’s determination; check local law outside the US. A 1937 date does not itself make every edition free in the US in 2026. The status of this particular historical text does not license Pell’s 2005 revisions, modern introductions, contemporary covers or later additions.
04 / Alongside the book
Keep a thread.
01 / Read the historical voice
Read the historical voice.
Begin with the original 1937 wording. Mark a practical instruction, a historical anecdote and a claim about unseen mental forces in different ways.
02 / Compare an update
Compare an update.
Read one chapter beside Pell’s revised version. Ask which changes clarify the language and which reshape the argument.
03 / Follow the longer course
Follow the longer course.
Turn to the full Law of Success to see how an earlier, extended lesson sequence differs from this shorter program.
05 / After reading
Let the questions stay.
Optional deeper reading. The panels below may discuss later events or the ending. They begin closed so you can choose when to continue.
Deeper themes · possible spoilersLook beneath the surface.
Original PointCast interpretations and prompts, rather than the author’s stated meaning. Open after reading if you want to preserve the discovery.
Goals and general claims
What distinguishes a useful goal-setting exercise from a universal claim about how wealth arises?
Anecdotes as evidence
What evidence would support a claim about autosuggestion or a mental mechanism?
The work of an update
Which successes receive attention, and which failures or circumstances remain outside the book’s account?
Reading group · discussion spoilersBring it into conversation.
These questions concern the whole work. Return to the edition you are reading for examples and compare passages rather than page numbers.
- What evidence would support a claim about autosuggestion or a mental mechanism?
- Which successes receive attention, and which failures or circumstances remain outside the book’s account?
- How does modernization alter the book’s authority, tone and historical assumptions?
06 / The next door
Nearby readings.
Sources / Follow the evidence
The reading is personal.
The references are inspectable.
A companion with its sources.
Primary publisher
Penguin Random House: original-text Classic Edition
Original publication year, original-text claim, precise selected edition metadata
Primary publisher
Penguin Random House: revised edition
Pell update, metadata, author dates
Primary public-library record
Wake County library catalogue
Selected revised edition ISBN, publisher, 2005 publication and bibliographic identifiers
Digital provider and historical primary text
Internet Sacred Text Archive: specific text and front matter
Specific 1938 source printing, host’s US rights claim and linked renewal-search report
University-library directory
UPenn Online Books Page: Napoleon Hill
Independent catalogue listing of the 1938 Sacred Texts edition
University copyright research centre
Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain: 2026
US-only date-based expiration context; 1930 works enter US public domain in 2026. Later books need a separate basis.
Library discovery route
Find the Classic Edition through your library
Title-level discovery of the Penguin digital edition. The provider displays a print ISBN; confirm the licensed format with your own library. No selected print holding is implied.
Library discovery route
Find your library in Libby
Search Think and Grow Rich and Napoleon Hill through your participating library. Local licences, borrowing eligibility and availability vary; this does not establish a holding of the selected print ISBN.
Digital provider
Read a historical edition at the Internet Sacred Text Archive
The host identifies its specific historical text as public domain in the United States because the 1937/1938 copyright was not renewed. UPenn’s Online Books Page independently catalogues this 1938 online edition.
Introductions, reading lenses, pathways, and discussion prompts are original editorial copy. No book text is reproduced on this page.
The artwork was generated as an original editorial atmosphere. It is not an official cover, archival evidence, an author’s artwork, or a publisher endorsement.