The Jungle (Clydesdale Classics) - Softcover

Sinclair, Upton

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1945186046 ISBN 13: 9781945186042

Publisher: Clydesdale Press, 2016

Synopsis

The Uncle Tom’s Cabin of wage slavery.” Jack London

Packaged in handsome, affordable trade editions, Clydesdale Classics is a new series of essential literary works. It features literary phenomena with influence and themes so great that, after their publication, they changed literature forever. From the musings of literary geniuses such as Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Scarlet Letter, to the striking personal narratives from Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, this new series is a comprehensive collection of our history through the words of the exceptional few.

Set in Chicago during the early 1900s, Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle portrays the hardships of the immigrant working class. The story begins with Lithuanian immigrant Jurgis Rudkus, who takes a job at Brown’s slaughterhouse to try to earn enough money to stay afloat. His life becomes a constant struggle he, his young wife, Ona, and the rest of his family eventually falling victim to a slew of unfortunate circumstances including exploitation, abuse, and for some even death.

From unsanitary and unsafe working conditions to poverty wages, the novel revealed to the American public the struggles immigrants encountered in Chicago’s meatpacking industry. Sinclair, a muckraking journalist, penned the bestselling narrative in an attempt to expose the evils of capitalism, and bring to light the extreme adversity these people faced not just in Chicago, but in industrialized cities across the country. By detailing numerous health violations in these workplaces, Sinclair’s novel caused public outrage and eventually led to the passing of the Meat Inspection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act.

The Jungle is an honest, sometimes brutal, tour de force that opened America’s eyes to the struggles and horrors many immigrants endured.

About this title

Review:

"When people ask me what has happened in my long lifetime I do not refer them to the newspaper files and to the authorities, but to [Sinclair's] novels." --George Bernard Shaw

From the Back Cover:

An ardent activist, champion of political reform, novelist, and progressive journalist, Upton Sinclair is perhaps best known today for The Jungle his devastating expose of the meat-packing industry. A protest novel he privately published in 1906, the book was a shocking revelation of intolerable labor practices and unsanitary working conditions in the Chicago stockyards. It quickly became a bestseller, arousing public sentiment and resulting in such federal legislation as the Pure Food and Drug Act.-The brutally grim story of a Slavic family who emigrates to America, The Jungle tells of their rapid and inexorable descent into numbing poverty, moral degradation, and social and economic despair. Vulnerable and isolated, the family of Jurgis Rudkus struggles unsuccessfully to survive in an urban jungle.
A powerful view of turn-of-the-century poverty, graft, and corruption, this fiercely realistic American classic is still required reading in many history and literature classes. It will continue to haunt readers long after they've finished the last page."

About this edition

• Publisher: Clydesdale Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1945186046
• ISBN 13: 9781945186042
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 344