Other editions of book The Jungle: A Novel

The Jungle portrays the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants in the United States in Chicago and similar industrialized cities. The book depicts working-class poverty, the lack of social supports, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a hopelessness among many workers. The primary purpose of the novel in describing the meat industry and its working conditions was to advance socialism in the United States. The main character in the book, Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant, tries to make ends meet in Chicago. The book begins with his wife Ona and his wedding feast. He and his family live near the stockyards and meatpacking district where many immigrants, who do not know much English, work. He takes a job at Brown's slaughterhouse. Jurgis had thought the US would offer more freedom, but he finds working-conditions harsh. He and his young wife struggle to survive as they fall deeply into debt and become prey to con men. Hoping to buy a house, they exhaust their savings on the down payment for a substandard slum house, which they cannot afford. The family is eventually evicted after their money is taken.

Here is the dramatic exposé of the Chicago meatpacking industry at the turn of the century that prompted an investigation by Theodore Roosevelt, which culminated in the pure-food legislation of 1906. The Jungle is the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a Slavic immigrant who marries frail Ona Lukoszaite and seeks security and happiness as a workman in the Chicago stockyards. Once there, he is abused by foremen, his meager savings are filched by real-estate sharks, and at every turn he is plagued by the misfortunes arising from poverty, poor working conditions, and disease. Finally, in accordance with Sinclair’s own creed, Rudkus turns to socialism as a way out.

An ardent activist, champion of political reform, novelist, and progressive journalist, Upton Sinclair is perhaps best known today for The Jungle — his devastating exposé 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.

The Jungle, a novel by American journalist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968), was written in 1906 to portray the harsh conditions and exploited lives of immigrants living in Chicago and similar industrialized cities in the United States. While his main goal in describing the working conditions in the meat industry was based on an investigation he conducted for a socialist newspaper with the goal of advancing socialism in the United States, most readers were more concerned with several of the passages exposing health violations and unsanitary practices in the American meat packing industry during the early 20th century. It greatly contributed to a public outcry, which led to reforms including the Meat Inspection Act. Sinclair famously said of the public reaction, "I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach." The book depicts working-class poverty amid a lack of social support, harsh and unpleasant living and working conditions, and a sense of hopelessness among the many workers. These elements contrasted greatly with the deeply rooted corruption of the people in power. A review by writer Jack London called it the “Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery." Sinclair had spent seven weeks working incognito in the meatpacking plants of the Chicago stockyards while gathering information for the socialist newspaper, Appeal to Reason. As a journalist who exposed corruption in government and business, he was considered a “muckraker.” He first published The Jungle in serial form in the newspaper in 1905 and it was then published as a book in 1906.

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.

An ardent activist, champion of political reform, novelist, and progressive journalist, Upton Sinclair is perhaps best known today for The Jungle — his devastating exposé 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.

The Jungle is a 1906 novel written by the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Upton Sinclair (1878–1968). Upton Sinclair wrote the novel to portray the changing lives of immigrants traveling to the United States and landing in Chicago or other industrialized cities. Sinclair exposed shocking government and business corruption in this 1906 best seller. He worked undercover in the meatpacking Chicago stockyards to describe in true detail the horrific conditions among workers and the food they produced. His work, intended as a message to promote socialism, instead caused changes in the food industry with laws signed by Theodore Roosevelt as the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. “I aimed at the public's heart,” Sinclair wrote, “and by accident hit its stomach.”

Written in 1906, The Jungle portrays the exploitation of immigrants and harsh working conditions in America’s industrialized cities. The novel follows the life of Jurgis Rudkus, a Lithuanian immigrant struggling to make ends meet for his family as a meatpacking worker in Chicago. Jurgis came to the United States to pursue the American Dream, but he soon finds that the reality of life in America falls far short.

“Practically alone among the American writers of his generation,” wrote Edmund Wilson, “[Sinclair] put to the American public the fundamental questions raised by capitalism in such a way that they could not escape them.” When it was first published in 1906, The Jungle exposed the inhumane conditions of Chicago’s stockyards and the laborer’s struggle against industry and “wage slavery.” It was an immediate bestseller and led to new regulations that forever changed workers’ rights and the meatpacking industry. A direct descendant of Dickens’s Hard Times, it remains the most influential workingman’s novel in American literature.

“The Uncle Tom’s Cabin of wage slavery.” —Jack London. Sinclair’s masterpiece is an honest, sometimes brutal, tour de force that opened America’s eyes to the struggles and horrors many immigrants endured.Welcome to Chicago during the early 1900s. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle portrays the hardships of the immigrant working class in a way that changed literature and history. 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.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.