Tarcher imprint at Penguin has been putting out some interesting reissues of classic books. I liked what they did with Think and Grow Rich.

They now have a new edition to Public Speaking for Success by Dale Carnegie. The introduction starts:

When people are asked what their greatest fear is, the most frequent response is dying and the second most frequent is speaking in public.

The book was originally published in 1926 when Carnegie was teaching public speaking. This edition includes three essays that Carnegie included in the original edition– Acres of Diamonds, A Message to Garcia, and As a Man Thinketh. I love the Carnegie’s introduction to A Message from Garcia:

This is not a speech. It originally appeared as an article in the March 1899 Philistine Magazine. It is given here because it is representative of the messages popular in the business world.

About a million and a half copies of this article were distributed by the New York Central Railroad. It has been translated into all written languages

During the war between Russia and Japan, every Russian soldier who went to the front was given a copy of the “Message to Garcia.”

The Japanese, finding the booklets in possession of the Russian prisoners, concluded that it must be a god thing, and accordingly translated it into Japanese.

And on an order of the Mikado, a copy ws given to every man in the employ of the Japanese government, soldier or civilian.

Over forty million copies of “A Message to Garcia” have been printed. This is said to be a larger circulation than any other literary venture has ever attained during the lifetime of the author, in all history.