The Richest Man in Babylon
And Other Stories
George S. Clason 1926
Stories set in ancient Babylon offer practical advice about saving money, avoiding debt, and building wealth. Arkad, a wealthy man who began as a scribe, explains how he learned to keep part of his earnings.
40 pages 47 min reading time
- One of the best-known and most widely read books on personal money management ever written.
- Argues that anyone can build wealth by keeping at least one tenth of everything they earn, before spending on anything else.
- Teaches that saved money should be put to work so it earns more money, while warning against risky schemes and advice from people with no experience.
- Made "pay yourself first" a basic rule of personal finance, repeated by many later money advisers and books.
- Its stories began as pamphlets that banks and insurance companies handed out to customers, and the book is still often given as a first guide to saving.
Written by a mapmaker
The author did not work in banking but ran a company in Denver that published maps and road atlases.
Invented clay tablets
Some chapters are letters from an archaeologist translating ancient clay tablets, but the letters and tablets are made up.
Published one story at a time
The stories first came out separately as short pamphlets and were only later gathered into one book.
From the 1930 Clason Publishing booklet