# How to Win Friends and Influence People *Dale Carnegie. Simon & Schuster, first published November 1936.* > This note was assembled from publisher and library pages, Wikipedia, the Library of Congress exhibition list and press pieces. The book's full text was not read for this note, so the outline follows the principles list reproduced on Wikipedia, and is marked where it rests on that single source. ## 1. Book facts | | | |---|---| | Title | *How to Win Friends and Influence People* | | Author | Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) | | First published | November 1936, Simon & Schuster, New York ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People)) | | Revised editions | 1981 revised edition (updated language and anecdotes; four parts instead of six); 2022 edition supervised by the author's daughter Donna Dale Carnegie, advertised as restoring material from the 1936 text (Wikipedia) | | ISBN used here | 978-0-671-02703-2. A search summary of publisher and retailer listings described it as the 1998 Gallery Books trade paperback with a 1981 copyright and 320 pages. The Simon & Schuster page returned 403 to me, so that is unconfirmed. The 1936 edition predates ISBNs. | | Pages | Varies by edition. The `pages` field (283) is Open Library's median across its editions of the work, not a count for one printing. | | Open Library | 189 editions; first published 1936 ([work page](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1063267W)) | **Where it came up.** - Video: [Sam Altman's coach destroys your limiting beliefs for 86 minutes straight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi23y0x-MhA), *My First Million* (guest Joe Hudson, hosts Shaan Puri and Sam Parr). - Mention: [6:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi23y0x-MhA&t=408s). Hudson says lasting change has to be addressed in the mind, the heart and the nervous system. A host compares the mind level, knowing what to do, to reading *How to Win Friends and Influence People* and thinking "duh". The author is not named in the video; the vault note adds it from the book's public listings. - Vault note: [[Video Summaries/My First Million/Sam Altman's coach destroys your limiting beliefs for 86 minutes straight]]. ## 2. Book resources **Reference pages** - Publisher: [Simon & Schuster listing for ISBN 9780671027032](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/How-to-Win-Friends-and-Influence-People/Dale-Carnegie/Dale-Carnegie-Books/9780671027032) (blocks automated checks; unchecked) - Dale Carnegie & Associates: [book page](https://www.dalecarnegie.com/en/books/how-to-win-friends-influence-people) - Open Library: [work page](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1063267W) - Google Books: [edition listing](https://books.google.com/books/about/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People.html?id=m23LR2GL8OMC) - WorldCat: [search](https://search.worldcat.org/search?q=ti%3Ahow+to+win+friends+and+influence+people+au%3Acarnegie) (blocks automated checks; unchecked) - Library of Congress: [Books That Shaped America, exhibition items](https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/books-that-shaped-america/exhibititems.html) (lists the 1940 Simon & Schuster / Pocket Books edition) **Where to get it** - **Amazon (print and Kindle):** [search for the title](https://www.amazon.com/s?k=how+to+win+friends+and+influence+people+carnegie); I did not pin one edition. - **Audible:** yes. A search summary listed a 2004 edition narrated by Andrew Macmillan (7 h 15 min) and a newer 2022 edition narrated by Robert Petkoff (8 h 31 min). Audible and the publisher block automated checks, so narrators and lengths are unverified. - **Libraries (free to members):** [Libby/OverDrive](https://libbyapp.com/search/query-how%20to%20win%20friends%20and%20influence%20people) and [Hoopla](https://www.hoopladigital.com/search?q=how%20to%20win%20friends%20and%20influence%20people). These are search links; availability was not confirmed. - **Internet Archive lending:** [search results](https://archive.org/search?query=how+to+win+friends+and+influence+people). Open Library lists the work as borrowable, meaning controlled digital lending, not a free download. - **Free full text:** none that I can confirm as legal. Dale Carnegie died on 1 November 1955, so the 1936 text is in the public domain in life-plus-70 countries from 1 January 2026 (Wikisource's author page says works of authors who died in 1955 are public domain where the term is life plus 70, but lists only *The Art of Public Speaking*). In the United States, [Cornell's chart](https://guides.library.cornell.edu/copyright/publicdomain) gives 95 years from publication for works published 1931 to 1963 with notice and renewal, which would run to the end of 2032 if the 1936 copyright was renewed. I did not check the renewal record. Project Gutenberg and Wikisource do not host the book, I found no hosted copy at Faded Page or Gutenberg Australia, and the 1981 and 2022 editions are in copyright everywhere. This note links no full text. ## 3. Author biography Dale Carnegie was born Dale Harbison Carnagey on 24 November 1888 on a farm near Maryville, Missouri, and spelled his name Carnagey until about 1922 ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie)). - He graduated from the State Teachers College in Warrensburg in 1908, then sold correspondence courses and, for Armour & Company, bacon, soap and lard. He quit sales in 1911 and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York (Wikipedia). - In 1912 he persuaded the YMCA on 125th Street to let him teach a public-speaking class for 80 per cent of the net proceeds. Running out of material, he had students speak about something that made them angry, and that became the seed of the Dale Carnegie Course (Wikipedia). - Wikipedia reports that he served in the US Army in the First World War and that his draft card noted a conscientious-objector filing. - Books: *Public Speaking: a Practical Course for Business Men* (1926), *Lincoln the Unknown* (1932), *How to Win Friends and Influence People* (1936), *How to Stop Worrying and Start Living* (1948) (Wikipedia). - He married Dorothy Price Vanderpool in 1944, after a first marriage that ended in divorce in 1931. He died of Hodgkin lymphoma on 1 November 1955 at his home in Forest Hills, New York (Wikipedia). - Wikipedia carries a maintenance banner saying the article leans on primary sources; the facts above are not independently checked. ## 4. Author interviews and talks - [Dale Carnegie discusses Booth Tarkington, 14 February 1945](https://pastdaily.com/dale-carnegie-talks-about-booth-tarkington-1945-past-daily-holiday-gallimaufry/): a Mutual radio recording from the Gordon Skene Sound Collection, posted by the Past Daily sound archive ([MP3](https://oildale.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/28112018/Dale-Carnegie-Booth-Tarkington-February-14-1945.mp3), link responds). I did not listen to it. - Other Carnegie radio appearances turned up in search (a 1948 *Fred Allen Show* episode, "Breakfast Worries", at the Radio Days Museum), but that page returned a server error, so I do not rely on it. - No filmed or recorded interview with Carnegie about this book was found. Because he died in 1955, the items below are about him rather than by him. - [BBC Presents Warren Buffett on Dale Carnegie Training](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7gXaPY524I), a video on the Dale Carnegie channel (the page responds; I did not watch it). - [Warren Buffett: "This $100 college course gave me the most important degree I have"](https://www.cnbc.com/make-it/2019/03/21/billionaire-warren-buffett-says-a-100-dollar-course-had-the-biggest-impact-on-his-success.html) (CNBC Make It, 21 March 2019). ## 5. Summary **Thesis.** Wikipedia gives one of the book's core ideas as: it is possible to change other people's behavior by changing one's own behavior toward them. Carnegie called it an "action-book", and it is generally classed among the first books of the modern self-help genre ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People)). **Origin.** Publisher Leon Shimkin took one of Carnegie's 14-week courses in 1934 and had a stenographer transcribe a long lecture, which Carnegie edited into the book. Shimkin mailed 500 copies to course graduates, which brought orders for more than 5,000 copies against an initial print run of 1,200 (Wikipedia). **Structure (original 1936 edition, per Wikipedia).** The book has six sections. The 1981 revision cut it to four by dropping the letters chapter and the home-life chapter, and omitted items 6 to 8 and 11 of the opening list. 1. *Twelve Things This Book Will Do For You*: a one-page list of promised benefits, such as making friends quickly, increasing popularity and influence, and handling complaints. 2. *Fundamental Techniques in Handling People*: don't criticize, condemn or complain; give honest and sincere appreciation; arouse in the other person an eager want. 3. *Six Ways to Make People Like You*: become genuinely interested in others; smile; remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest sound in any language; be a good listener; talk in terms of the other person's interests; make the other person feel important, sincerely. 4. *Twelve Ways to Win People to Your Way of Thinking*: avoid arguments; show respect for opinions and never say "you're wrong"; admit your own errors quickly; begin in a friendly way; get early "yes" answers; let the other person talk; let them feel the idea is theirs; see their point of view; be sympathetic; appeal to nobler motives; dramatize your ideas; throw down a challenge. 5. *Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment*: nine principles, including beginning with praise, pointing out mistakes indirectly, talking about your own mistakes first, asking questions instead of giving orders, letting people save face and praising every improvement. 6. *Letters That Produced Miraculous Results* (the shortest chapter; dropped in 1981) and *Seven Rules For Making Your Home Life Happier* (dropped in 1981; the rules begin "Don't nag" and end with a recommendation to read a good book on the sexual side of marriage). I did not open a publisher contents page, so chapter titles within each part are not listed. **Key ideas.** - Criticism rarely changes behavior, so begin with appreciation (principles in parts 2 and 5, per Wikipedia). - Attention to the other person's interests and name is presented as the basis of being liked (part 3). - Disagreements are better avoided than won (part 4). - Corrections work better indirect, with the other person's face preserved (part 5). **Reception.** Wikipedia reports 17 printings in the first year and 250,000 copies in the first three months, and says the *New York Times* reviewed it in February 1937 with balanced criticism: useful advice, but simple. Sinclair Lewis later criticised it as teaching people to "smile and bob and pretend to be interested in other people's hobbies precisely so that you may screw things out of them". Wikipedia also says later scholarly reviews criticised Carnegie as insincere and manipulative. These claims come from Wikipedia and I did not open the primary sources. ## 6. Fact-check Overall verdict: **mixed**. The publication and reception facts hold up; the book's behavioural claims are advice rather than tested findings, and several popular legacy claims rest on a single secondary source. | Claim | Verdict | Evidence | |---|---|---| | First published in 1936 by Simon & Schuster | Supported | [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People); Open Library gives first publication 1936; the Library of Congress lists a 1940 Simon & Schuster / Pocket Books edition and describes the work as 1936 ([LoC](https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/books-that-shaped-america/exhibititems.html)) | | Included in the Library of Congress's "Books That Shaped America" | Supported | [LoC exhibition items](https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/books-that-shaped-america/exhibititems.html) | | Wikipedia: a 2013 Library of Congress survey ranked it seventh most influential | Unverified | The LoC page I opened lists the book in an exhibition (2012 press release in search results) but gives no ranking | | Over 30 million copies sold | Unverified | Wikipedia states it; the publisher figure was not confirmed. Wikipedia's Carnegie article says five million copies in 31 languages by 1955, so the figure grew by later accounting or newer editions | | Warren Buffett took the Carnegie course and displays the certificate | Supported, with a wording caveat | [CNBC](https://www.cnbc.com/make-it/2019/03/21/billionaire-warren-buffett-says-a-100-dollar-course-had-the-biggest-impact-on-his-success.html) quotes Buffett on a $100 Dale Carnegie public-speaking course and his certificate on his office wall; Wikipedia names the course after the book | | Sinclair Lewis's "smile and bob" criticism | Unverified | Quoted by Wikipedia; the original source was not opened | | *New York Times* noted its success in Nazi Germany | Unverified | Reported by Wikipedia; the 1930s article was not opened | | Charles Manson used its methods in prison | Unverified | Wikipedia alone; no primary source opened | | 1981 revision shortened the book from six sections to four | Supported | Wikipedia's account of both editions | | The 1936 text is public domain | Disputed by jurisdiction | Public domain in life-plus-70 countries from 2026; likely still protected in the US until 2032 if renewed (renewal unchecked) | | The book's psychological advice produces the stated results | Unverified | The book offers anecdotes and rules; I did not find a controlled study of its method in the sources opened | ## 7. Citations and references - Wikipedia, [How to Win Friends and Influence People](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People) and [Dale Carnegie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dale_Carnegie). - Library of Congress, [Books That Shaped America: exhibition items](https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/books-that-shaped-america/exhibititems.html). - Wikisource, [Author:Dale Carnegie](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Dale_Carnegie). - Cornell University Library, [Copyright term and the public domain](https://guides.library.cornell.edu/copyright/publicdomain). - Open Library, [work OL1063267W](https://openlibrary.org/works/OL1063267W); Google Books, [edition listing](https://books.google.com/books/about/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influence_People.html?id=m23LR2GL8OMC). - CNBC Make It, [Warren Buffett on the $100 course](https://www.cnbc.com/make-it/2019/03/21/billionaire-warren-buffett-says-a-100-dollar-course-had-the-biggest-impact-on-his-success.html). - Past Daily, [Dale Carnegie discusses Booth Tarkington (1945)](https://pastdaily.com/dale-carnegie-talks-about-booth-tarkington-1945-past-daily-holiday-gallimaufry/). - Video: [Sam Altman's coach destroys your limiting beliefs for 86 minutes straight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bi23y0x-MhA), *My First Million*.