David Moir/Reuters
George S. Clason's "The Richest Man in Babylon" is just as relevant today.
The "secret" to getting rich is not much of a secret at all.
"It is practical. That which one man knows can be taught to others," George S. Clason writes in his 1926 personal finance classic "The Richest Man in Babylon."
Clason's collection of parables, based in the ancient city of Babylon, starts with the story of Arkad - the son of a humble merchant, of a large family with no hope of inheritance - who grows to become the richest man in Babylon, thanks to wisdom he sought out from a rich money lender named Algamish.
In hopes of turning his city into the wealthiest in the world, the King of Babylon asks Arkad if he can share the "secret to wealth" with the rest of the city. Arkad complies, and over the course of seven days, teaches a class of 100 men what he calls the "seven cures for a lean purse."