James Allen

Worked as a private secretary in English factories, left in his late thirties to write in a cottage in Ilfracombe, and died at forty-seven having sold almost nothing.

As a Man Thinketh runs to about seven thousand words and states one idea: a person is literally what they think, and circumstances grow from character rather than the reverse.

It was published in 1903, entered the public domain, and became a foundational text for the entire American success literature that followed, usually without attribution. The determinism in it is absolute and does not survive contact with poverty or illness, which readers should hold in mind.