Alistair MacLean was born in Glasgow, Scotland on April 28, 1922. During World War II, he served in the Royal Navy. He graduated with a degree in English from Glasgow University. Before becoming a full-time author, he was a teacher. He wrote numerous books including HMS Ulysses, The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra, Where Eagles Dare, Dark Crusader, Satan Bug, Captain Cook: A Biography, and Santorini. He also wrote The Black Shrike and The Satan Bug under the pseudonym Ian Stuart. Several of his books were adapted into movies including The Secret Ways, Fear Is the Key, and When Eight Bells Toll. He also wrote several original screenplays including Breakheart Pass and conceived an… adventure drama for television entitled The Hostage Towers. He died of heart failure on February 2, 1987 at the age of 64.A progressive social reformer and New Thought pioneer, Wallace D. Wattles was born in 1860 in the United States. He popularized creative-thought principles in his groundbreaking classics The Science of Getting Rich, The Science of Being Great, and The Science of Being Well. An inspiration to on future generations of success writers, he died in 1911. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1885, Robert Collier distilled New Thought, metaphysical, and success principles into a popular and influential pamphlet series, collected into a single volume as The Secret of the Agesin 1926, and later revised by Collier in an expanded edition in 1948. He died in 1950. Born in 1866, Charles F. Haanel achieved success as both a businessman and an author, rising to top positions at numerous corporations in his native St. Louis. Often called the "Father of Personal Development," Haanel was among the earliest writers to popularize the "Law of Attraction." He published The Master Key Systemas a correspondence course in 1912 and collected his lessons into a single volume in 1917. He died in 1949.