George S. Clason, was born in Louisiana, Missouri, and died in Napa, California. During his eighty two years he was a soldier, businessman and writer. He served in the United States Army during the Spanish-American War. Clason started two companies, the Clason Map Company of Denver Colorado and the Clason Publishing Company. The Clason Map Company was the first to publish a road atlas of the United States and Canada. Clason is best known for writing a series of informational pamphlets about being thrifty and how to achieve financial success. He started writing the pamphlets in 1926, using parables that were set in ancient Babylon. Banks and insurance companies began to distribute the parables, and the most famous ones were compiled into the book The Richest Man in Babylon. Mitch Horowitz, who abridged and introduced this volume, is the PEN Award-winning author of books including Occult America and The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality.  The Washington Post says Mitch "treats esoteric ideas and movements with an even-handed intellectual studiousness that is too often lost in today's raised-voice discussions." Follow him @MitchHorowitz.