Other editions of book King Coal; a Novel

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968), “a self-described socialist propagandist,” was an American writer who wrote nearly one hundred books and other works in several genres. Sinclair's work was well known and popular in the first half of the twentieth century due to his desire to expose what he referred to as "the 'wage slavery' of workers,” acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906), which exposed labor and sanitary conditions in the U.S. meatpacking industry, causing a public uproar that contributed to the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. After hearing of the deadly Colorado Fuel and Iron strike, also known as the Ludlow Massacre on April 20, 1914, a strike identified as "one of the most grueling, longlasting industrial conflicts in the history of the United States,” Sinclair focused his attention on the coal mining industry with King Coal, resulting in what scholar R.N. Mookerjee refers to as a "very successful and effective fusion of journalistic excellence and creative imagination," and believes it "is undoubtedly one of Sinclair's more artistic achievements.”Heathenry:Either dictated by early twentieth-century American grammar style or maybe it was just personal preference, Mr. Sinclair used hyphenated words in extreme abundance throughout the original text. Being the Heathens that we are, we felt those hyphened words were dated, tedious, and trying for today’s eyes, so we opted to edit and update those words to reflect their modern usage. For example, “star-dust” has become “stardust” and “to-morrow” has become “tomorrow.”He also chose to hyphenate many coal mining terms that are not, in fact, hyphenated, even when compared to literature from the time, so we edited those words as well. That’s how a “check-weighman” becomes a “checkweighman” and a “pit-boss” becomes a “pit boss.”And since we were editing the text anyway, we chose to jettison Sinclair’s use of British spellings in favor of their American counterparts.Had we realized beforehand the amount of work involved to make all of those changes, we most certainly never would have begun. However, now that it’s finished, we’re most confident that our version of King Coal is easier on the eyes and a far more enjoyable read as a result.Indeed, we think Hal sung it best: Hurrah for you and me!Excerpt:The roar of the mob rolled down the street and back again. “We’ll not stand it! We’ll not stand it!” Men shook their clenched fists, women shrieked, even children shouted curses. “We’ll fight them! We’ll slave no more for them!”And Mary found a magic word. “We’ll have a union!” she shouted. “We’ll get together and stay together! If they refuse us our rights, we’ll know what to answer – we’ll have a strike!”There was a roar like the crashing of thunder in the mountains. Yes, Mary had found the word! For many years it had not been spoken aloud in North Valley, but now it ran like a flash of gunpowder through the throng. “Strike! Strike! Strike! Strike!” It seemed as if they would never have enough of it. Not all of them had understood Mary’s speech, but they knew this word, “Strike!” They translated and proclaimed it in Polish and Bohemian and Italian and Greek. “Strike! Strike! Strike!”

About the Author- Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr. (September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968), was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). It exposed conditions in the U.S.-Wikipedia

King Coal is a 1917 novel by Upton Sinclair that describes the poor working conditions in the coal mining industry in the western United States during the 1910s, from the perspective of a single protagonist, Hal Warner. As in his earlier work, The Jungle, Sinclair uses the novel to express his socialist viewpoint. The book is based on the 1914-1915 Colorado coal strikes.

[Read by Grover Gardner] Well known for ''The Jungle'', his scathing expose of the Chicago meatpacking industry at the turn of the twentieth century, Upton Sinclair here takes on yet another massive industry: coal mining. Based on the 1914 and 1915 Colorado coal strikes, ''King Coal'' describes the abhorrent conditions faced by workers in the western United States' coal mining industry during the 1910s. The story follows Hal Warner, a rich man looking to get a better view of the lives of commoners. It is a tale of struggle, threats, and violence, of hardened men and the advocacy for workers' rights. In this business, the road to unionization is a rocky one.

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: was introduced, and it quickly became clear to Hal that hero was the man he was looking for. Keating knew exactly what questions to ask, and had the whole story in a few minutes. "By thunderI" he cried. "My last edition I " And he pulled out his watch, and sprang to the telephone. " Long distance," he called; then, " 1 want the city editor of the Western City Gazette. And, operator, please see if you can't rash it through. It's very urgent, and last time I had to wait nearly half an hour." He turned back to Hal, and proceeded to ask more questions, at the same time pulling a bunch of copy-paper from his pocket and making notes. He got all Hal's statements about the lack of sprinkling, the absence of escape-ways, the delay in starting the fan, the concealing of the number of men in the mine. " I knew things

Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr. (1878 – 1968), was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in many genres. He achieved popularity in the first half of the twentieth century, acquiring particular fame for his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle (1906). It exposed conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that contributed in part to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In 1919, he published The Brass Check, a muckraking exposé of American journalism that publicized the issue of yellow journalism and the limitations of the “free press” in the United States. Four years after the initial publication of The Brass Check, the first code of ethics for journalists was created Time magazine called him "a man with every gift except humor and silence." In 1943, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Hal Warner may be a rich kid, but even he can see that the working conditions in the Colorado coal mines are inhumane. Inspired by real-life events, King Coal follows Hal’s undercover exploration of the coal industry and his attempts to unionize the workers. Like Upton Sinclair’s more famous novel The Jungle (1906), this 1917 novel highlights the often unfair and unsafe conditions experienced by working-class Americans in the early 20th century.

Excerpt from King Coal: A NovelThis time Upton Sinclair has absorbed himself in the study of the miner's life in the lonesome pits of the Rocky Moun tains, and his sensitive and enthusiastic mind has brought to the world an American parallel to germinal, Emile Zola's technical masterpiece.The conditions described in the two books are, however, essentially different. While Zola's working-men are all natives of France, one meets in Sinclair's book a motley variety of European emigrants, speaking a Babel of languages and therefore debarred from forming some sort of association to protect themselves against being exploited by the anony mous limited Company. Notwithstanding this natural bar against united action on the part of the wage-earning slaves, the Company feels far from at ease and jealously guards its interests against any attempt of organising the men.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Upton Sinclair Jr. (1878-1968), was a prolific American author who wrote over 90 books in many genres and was widely considered to be one of the best investigators advocating socialist views and supporting anarchist causes. He achieved considerable popularity in the first half of the 20th century. He gained particular fame for his 1906 novel The Jungle, which dealt with conditions in the U. S. meat packing industry and caused a public uproar that partly contributed to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906. An early success was the Civil War novel Manassas, written in 1903 and published a year later. Originally projected as the opening book of a trilogy, the success of The Jungle caused him to drop his plans. Sinclair created a socialist commune, named Helicon Hall Colony, in 1906 with proceeds from his novel The Jungle.

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