The purpose of Extravagant Living is to exhibit the evils that flow from the too common lack of prudence, of self-denial and economy in young people, at the beginning of life; and also to show, in contrast, the beneficial results of a wise restriction of the desires to the means. This is a lesson which cannot be too often repeated nor too forcibly illustrated. Extravagant expenditure - living beyond one"s means - is the besetting evil of social life in this country, from the common laborer, up to the "merchant prince" who will be satisfied with nothing less than a palace for a dwelling. Timothy Shay Arthur was a popular 19th-century American author most famous for his temperance novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There. He was also the author of dozens of stories for Godey"s Lady"s Book. Arthur did much to articulate and disseminate the values, beliefs, and habits that defined respectable life in America. Arthur was one of the most popular and widely read author of his time.