The text of Napoleon Hill's classic 1937 "Think and Grow Rich" is indeed available to be read, for free, on sacred-texts.com . The only problem I have with this edition -- and frankly with just about every other version of the book you can find (and there are many) -- is the "obsolete" quality of much of the content.
TGR is the greatest book on personal success ever written, no question about it. But it WAS written back in 1937. It uses some terminology and scientific concepts that have become completely obsolete. While this does not detract from Hill's basic ideas in the least, it makes understanding them more difficult simply because informed readers today know, for example, that there is no such thing as "the ether," but that we now know that the "electromagnetic spectrum" better describes how energy travels throughout the universe.
Hill wrote in an era when few women worked outside the home. What he said at times was perfectly suitable for the 1930s, but would today be considered sexist and discriminatory (although Hill didn't have a discriminatory bone in his body). He also made some statements that would have been considered fine for the 1930s, but which today could be considered racially offensive. Again, none of these things detracts from Hill's basic ideas and message, but they do create unnecessary obstacles for many of today's readers, especially women and members of various minorities.
Hill also wrote about people, events, and customs that the average reader would have been thoroughly familiar with in the 1930s to 1960s, but about which most modern readers just don't have a clue. I am a serious student of Napoleon Hill and his philosophy of success. I collect TGRs and own every edition, I believe, that has been published since 1960. I even have a 1938 edition. Of all the editions, I have found only one that solves all of the problems that exist with other editions such as the one found at sacred-texts.com. The book is titled "Think and Grow Rich!: The Original Version, Restored and Revised," edited by Ross Cornwell.
Through some very subtle editing, Mr. Cornwell has cleared up the sexist, racist, and obsolete language that detracts from Hill's message at certain points. In a huge endnotes section he explains who all the people, events, and customs were that Hill wrote about but which are unfamiliar today. Why nobody else thought to give the book an index all these years is a mystery to me, so Cornwell has given TGR the first real index it has ever had (and it's a comprehensive one). This is just a big (400 plus pages), well-done book the size of a hardback. It has plenty of margin space for note taking. It's my personal favorite of all the various editions because it's the most informative and easiest to read and study. I have based my business and my personal life on what I have learned from Napoleon Hill and this great book, but I'm afraid the ebook and online versions (and the others that also repeat the same old mistakes) just don't cut it.
A final point about a comment by another poster: I read somewhere a few weeks ago that the 1937 edition moved into the public domain in the early 1960s. Other new editions since then carry their own copyrights, but the 1937 text is indeed in the public domain.
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