The Jungle (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Sinclair, Upton; Schlosser, Eric; Burns, Charles

• ISBN13: 9780143039587
• ISBN10: 014303958X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-03-28
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

Upton Sinclair's dramatic and deeply moving story exposed the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the nineteenth century and brought into sharp moral focus the appalling odds against which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of the American dream. Denounced by the conservative press as an un-American libel on the meatpacking industry, the book was championed by more progressive thinkers, including then president Theodore Roosevelt, and was a major catalyst to the passing of the Pure Food and Meat Inspection act, which has tremendous impact to this day.

Author Biography

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) was born in Baltimore. At age fifteen, he began writing a series of dime novels in order to pay for his education at the City College of New York. He was later accepted to do graduate work at Columbia, and while there he published a number of novels, including The Journal of Arthur Stirling (1903) and Manassas (1904). Sinclair’s breakthrough came in 1906 with the publication of The Jungle, a scathing indictment of the Chicago meat-packing industry. His later works include World’s End (1940), Dragon’s Teeth (1942), which won him a Pulitzer Prize, O Shepherd, Speak! (1949) and Another Pamela (1950).

Charles Burns, a former contributor to Art Spiegelman’s Raw magazine, is an illustrator whose work has included the covers of major magazines and CDs. His most well- known comics are Black Hole, Big Baby, and Skin Deep.