Other editions of book The Jungle

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone EditionTM includes a glossary and reader’s notes to help the modern reader contend with Sinclair’s characterizations and language. Chicago, 1904: The lure of good wages and a chance to live The American Dream lure thousands of unsuspecting immigrants to the big city, where they find—instead of wealth and freedom—only stifling poverty, pervasive corruption, infectious disease, and early death. Upton Sinclair’s masterpiece of muckraking fiction-mixed-with-fact led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, but not in time to save the struggling Lithuanian family whose members come to life in The Jungle. The daily dangers of the meatpacking industry, dishonest politicians, and greedy businessmen, who care only about profits, conspire to rob Jurgis, Marija, Ona, and the rest of their hope and dignity. One after another, they succumb to the horrors that Sinclair so vividly depicts.

In this powerful book we enter the world of Jurgis Rudkus, a young Lithuanian immigrant who arrives in America fired with dreams of wealth, freedom, and opportunity. And we discover, with him, the astonishing truth about "packingtown," the busy, flourishing, filthy Chicago stockyards, where new world visions perish in a jungle of human suffering. Upton Sinclair, master of the "muckraking" novel, here explores the workingman's lot at the turn of the century: the backbreaking labor, the injustices of "wage-slavery," the bewildering chaos of urban life. The Jungle, a story so shocking that it launched a government investigation, recreates this startling chapter if our history in unflinching detail. Always a vigorous champion on political reform, Sinclair is also a gripping storyteller, and his 1906 novel stands as one of the most important -- and moving -- works in the literature of social change.