Other editions of book The Pit: A Story of Chicago

The Pit as a fictitious narrative of a "deal" in the Chicago wheat pit, which is the nickname of the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, where commodities are traded like stocks and bonds. One man tries to corner the market on wheat to make a fortune. More than a business story, the novel deals with love and the lack of love in a relationship, selfishness, power, greed, the financial power of men and lack of their power to control events that are shaped by nature. Quote:“Think of it, the food of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people just at the mercy of a few men down there on the Board of Trade. They make the price. They say just how much the peasant shall pay for his loaf of bread. If he can’t pay the price, he simply starves.”

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Norris described The Pit as a fictitious narrative of a "deal" in the Chicago wheat pit, which is the nickname of the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, where commodities are traded like stocks and bonds. One man tries to corner the market on wheat to make a fortune. More than a business story, the novel deals with love and the lack of love in a relationship, selfishness, power, greed, the financial power of men and lack of their power to control events that are shaped by nature. Quote:“Think of it, the food of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people just at the mercy of a few men down there on the Board of Trade. They make the price. They say just how much the peasant shall pay for his loaf of bread. If he can’t pay the price, he simply starves.”These poor people’s lives are completely out of their hands. In contrast, Norris suggests that ultimately the men down in the Pit don’t have power over them either, nor over their own lives, because above all, nature rules

Norris described The Pit as a fictitious narrative of a "deal" in the Chicago wheat pit, which is the nickname of the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, where commodities are traded like stocks and bonds. One man tries to corner the market on wheat to make a fortune. More than a business story, the novel deals with love and the lack of love in a relationship, selfishness, power, greed, the financial power of men and lack of their power to control events that are shaped by nature. Quote:“Think of it, the food of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people just at the mercy of a few men down there on the Board of Trade. They make the price. They say just how much the peasant shall pay for his loaf of bread. If he can’t pay the price, he simply starves.”These poor people’s lives are completely out of their hands. In contrast, Norris suggests that ultimately the men down in the Pit don’t have power over them either, nor over their own lives, because above all, nature rules

The Pit as a fictitious narrative of a "deal" in the Chicago wheat pit, which is the nickname of the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade, where commodities are traded like stocks and bonds. One man tries to corner the market on wheat to make a fortune. More than a business story, the novel deals with love and the lack of love in a relationship, selfishness, power, greed, the financial power of men and lack of their power to control events that are shaped by nature. Quote:“Think of it, the food of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people just at the mercy of a few men down there on the Board of Trade. They make the price. They say just how much the peasant shall pay for his loaf of bread. If he can’t pay the price, he simply starves.”

The Pit: A Story of Chicago is a 1903 novel by Frank Norris. Set in the wheat speculation trading pits at the Chicago Board of Trade Building, it was the second book in what was to be the trilogy The Epic of the Wheat. The first book, The Octopus, was published in 1901. Norris died unexpectedly in October 1902 from appendicitis leaving the third book, The Wolf: A Story of Empire, incomplete. Together the three novels were to follow the journey of a crop of wheat from its planting in California to its ultimate consumption as bread in Western Europe. Odin’s Library Classics is dedicated to bringing the world the best of humankind’s literature from throughout the ages. Carefully selected, each work is unabridged from classic works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, or drama.

At eight o'clock in the inner vestibule of the Auditorium Theatre by the window of the box office, Laura Dearborn, her younger sister Page, and their aunt—Aunt Wess'—were still waiting for the rest of the theatre-party to appear. A great, slow-moving press of men and women in evening dress filled the vestibule from one wall to another. A confused murmur of talk and the shuffling of many feet arose on all sides, while from time to time, when the outside and inside doors of the entrance chanced to be open simultaneously, a sudden draught of air gushed in, damp, glacial, and edged with the penetrating keenness of a Chicago evening at the end of February.The Italian Grand Opera Company gave one of the most popular pieces of its repertoire on that particular night, and the Cresslers had invited the two sisters and their aunt to share their box with them. It had been arranged that the party should assemble in the Auditorium vestibule at a quarter of eight; but by now the quarter was gone and the Cresslers still failed to arrive."I don't see," murmured Laura anxiously for the last time, "what can be keeping them. Are you sure Page that Mrs. Cressler meant here—inside?"She was a tall young girl of about twenty-two or three, holding herself erect and with fine dignity. Even beneath the opera cloak it was easy to infer that her neck and shoulders were beautiful. Her almost extreme slenderness was, however, her characteristic; the curves of her figure, the contour of her shoulders, the swell of hip and breast were all low; from head to foot one could discover no pronounced salience. Yet there was no trace, no suggestion of angularity. She was slender as a willow shoot is slender—and equally graceful, equally erect.Next to this charming tenuity, perhaps her paleness was her most noticeable trait. But it was not a paleness of lack of colour. Laura Dearborn's pallour was in itself a colour. It was a tint rather than a shade, like ivory; a warm white, blending into an exquisite, delicate brownness towards the throat. Set in the middle of this paleness of brow and cheek, her deep brown eyes glowed lambent and intense. They were not large, but in some indefinable way they were important. It was very natural to speak of her eyes, and in speaking to her, her friends always found that they must look squarely into their pupils. And all this beauty of pallid face and brown eyes was crowned by, and sharply contrasted with, the intense blackness of her hair, abundant, thick, extremely heavy, continually coruscating with sombre, murky reflections, tragic, in a sense vaguely portentous,—the coiffure of a heroine of romance, doomed to dark crises.On this occasion at the side of the topmost coil, a white aigrette scintillated and trembled with her every movement. She was unquestionably beautiful. Her mouth was a little large, the lips firm set, and one would not have expected that she would smile easily; in fact, the general expression of her face was rather serious."Perhaps," continued Laura, "they would look for us outside." But Page shook her head. She was five years younger than Laura, just turned seventeen. Her hair, dressed high for the first time this night, was brown. But Page's beauty was no less marked than her sister's. The seriousness of her expression, however, was more noticeable. At times it amounted to undeniable gravity. She was straight, and her figure, all immature as yet, exhibited hardly any softer outlines than that of a boy.

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