The Best Money Classics to Read in English

Why read old books about money?

Modern personal-finance books repeat a surprising amount of what was written one or two hundred years ago: spend less than you earn, avoid debt, work hard at something you are good at, and give back. Reading the originals shows you where these ideas came from, and the stories behind them are better than any chart.

They are also excellent English practice. The vocabulary is practical (earn, save, invest, debt, profit, wages), the arguments are clear, and many lines are famous enough to use in conversation. Every book on the Money classics shelf is retold in clear B2 English, with a Korean translation of each sentence and a short What this means for your money card at the end of each part.

Saving and spending

Start with the books about everyday money habits. They are short and full of memorable sayings.

• The Way to Wealth by Benjamin Franklin: 'A penny saved is a penny earned' and dozens more proverbs in one speech.
• The Art of Money Getting by P. T. Barnum: the circus king's golden rules, from 'spend less than you earn' to 'keep your word'.
• Self-Help by Samuel Smiles: the source of 'Heaven helps those who help themselves', with a whole chapter on money and debt.
• The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason: money rules told as stories from ancient Babylon. Keep at least a tenth of all you earn: 'Pay yourself first.'

How wealth is made

Next, the books that explain where wealth comes from, for a country and for a business.

• The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith: the pin factory, the butcher and the baker, and the invisible hand.
• My Life and Work by Henry Ford: service before profit, the assembly line, and the five-dollar day.
• Acres of Diamonds by Russell Conwell: the opportunity you are looking for may be in your own back garden.
• Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller: the richest man of his age on his boyhood account book, his first bank loan and the words he told himself every night: 'Go steady.'

Status, land and inflation

Three economists explain why we spend to be seen, why land keeps getting more expensive, and what happens to savings when money itself loses value.

• The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen: the book that named conspicuous consumption, and a silver spoon that shows how often we admire a price, not a thing.
• The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes: the world of free trade before 1914, saving as a cake that is never eaten, and why there is no surer way to overturn a society than to 'debauch the currency'.
• Progress and Poverty by Henry George: why poverty grows as cities grow richer, a settler whose land is made valuable by his neighbours, and the famous 'single tax' on land.

Bubbles and the stock market

Two books to read before you invest a single won: one about crowds, one about a trader's own mind.

• Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay: tulip mania, the South Sea Bubble and John Law's paper money: people 'go mad in herds', but recover their senses 'one by one'.
• Reminiscences of a Stock Operator by Edwin Lefèvre: the life of Jesse Livermore. There is nothing new in Wall Street, the big money is in sitting tight, and a trader's worst enemies are his own hope and fear.

Mindset and giving

Finally, three very different views of what money is for.

• As a Man Thinketh by James Allen: a short classic that compares the mind to a garden. Plant good thoughts, or weeds will grow by themselves.
• The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles: an early self-help classic. Give more in use value than you take in cash, and act today.
• The Gospel of Wealth by Andrew Carnegie: the steel king's argument that the rich should give their fortunes away while they live.

Ten money words you will meet

These words come up in almost every book on the shelf. Tap any of them in the reader for the Korean meaning.

• earn (벌다) and earnings (소득)
• save (저축하다) and thrift (절약)
• debt (빚) and borrow (빌리다)
• invest (투자하다) and capital (자본)
• profit (이윤) and wage (임금)

Banks, trade and the big arguments

Four classics behind today's news about interest rates, tariffs, birth rates and taxes on the rich.

• Lombard Street by Walter Bagehot: why money in banks is economic power, why 'money will not manage itself', and the famous rule for a panic: lend freely, at a high rate, against good security.
• Economic Sophisms by Frédéric Bastiat: the candlemakers who ask parliament to block out the Sun, and a railway made entirely of gaps. The funniest case ever made against tariffs.
• An Essay on the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus: people double, food only adds up, and five shillings a day cannot buy more meat than a country has. A famous prediction that turned out wrong, and an early lesson in inflation.
• The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx: a world of 'cash payment', crises of over-production, and ten measures, some now normal everywhere and some that failed wherever they were tried.

A good reading order

Read Franklin first: it is short, funny and full of proverbs. Then Clason, Barnum and Smiles for habits, Adam Smith and Ford for how wealth is made, Veblen, George and Keynes for how spending, land and inflation shape our lives, Mackay and Lefèvre before you invest, Bagehot, Bastiat, Malthus and Marx for the big arguments, and Carnegie last, because he asks the biggest question: what should you do with money once you have it? For another shelf of big ideas, see Philosophy classics in easy English.