Wallace Delois Wattles wrote a number of books including Health Through New Thought and Fasting, The Science of Getting Rich, The Science of Being Great, The Science of Being Well, and a novel, Hellfire Harrison, but it is for his prosperity classic, The Science of Getting Rich that he is best known.

Little is known about Wattles' life. He was born in the USA shortly after the civil war, and experienced much failure in his earlier years. Later in his life he took to studying the various religious beliefs and philosophies of the world including those of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Swedenborg, Emerson, and others. It was through his tireless study and experimentation that he discovered the truth of New Thought principles and put them into practice in his own life. He began to write books outlining these principles.