The 16 lessons include The Law of the Mastermind, A Definite Chief Aim, Self-Confidence, Habit of Saving, Initiative and Leadership, Imagination, Enthusiasm, Self-Control, Doing More than Paid For, A Pleasing Personality, Accurate Thinking, Concentration, Cooperation, Profiting by Failure, Tolerance, and The Golden Rule.

It was allegedly based upon interviews with over 100 American millionaires, including self-made industrial giants such as Henry Ford, J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, across nearly 20 years.

The Law of Success was first presented as a lecture, and was delivered by its author in many major cities and in many smaller localities throughout the United States over a period of more than seven years.

[citation needed] The Law of Success in 16 Lessons is an edited version of Napoleon Hill’s first manuscript, which was reworked under the advisement of several contributors.

[3] In a biography of Hill in 1995, Michael J. Ritt Jr. and Kirk Landers described the work as "a flawed, rambling, sometimes incomprehensible document that a skilled text editor with a strong sense of book market imperatives might have condensed to a slick, fast-reading, fifty-page chapter", but that "reduced to safe, conventional publishing practices.