Oil! - one of the books behind this year’s Oscars
Behind every glitzy Oscars ceremony, there are always books. Putting aside the red carpet, the fancy frocks and the long-winded speeches, Hollywood draws much of its inspiration from literature and this year’s event is no different. It’s a fact that often seems forgotten.
The most interesting book behind this year’s Oscars is Oil! by Upton Sinclair. There Will Be Blood, nominated for best film, is loosely based on this initially self-published book from 1927 by one of America’s pioneering socialists and champion of the downtrodden working classes.
Oil! tells the story of ‘Bunny’ Arnold Ross Jr, the son of an oil magnate who clashes with his father over the exploitation of employees in the California oilfields. Oil! is quite different to the movie that stars Daniel Day-Lewis, who has been nominated for best actor. The highly political book was even published in Russian at the height of the communist era.
Very few early editions of Oil! exist - although AbeBooks has a few. The book was banned in Boston for its overtly political content and ruffled many feathers during the late 1920s. However, Oil! is not the bestselling Upton Sinclair book on AbeBooks – his 1906 novel, The Jungle, remains hugely popular. Even with the massive exposure that comes with a Daniel Day-Lewis movie, Oil! has been outsold 20 to one by The Jungle on AbeBooks during 2008.
The Jungle revealed the terrible conditions in the American meatpacking industry. It is a book about poverty and the lack of help available to America’s poverty-stricken. The Jungle had a massive effect on its readers and the political scene at the time. Published in newspaper serial form at first, the novel was rejected by five publishers before Doubleday saw the book’s potential. It has never been out-of-print – first editions highly collectible and don’t come cheap.
Sinclair, who founded a socialist colony that was eventually burnt down by arsonists, wrote more than 90 books. In 1962, he published The Autobiography of Upton Sinclair and several biographies have been released including Upton Sinclair: American Rebel by Leon Harris, Upton Sinclair and the Other American Century by Kevin Mattson, and This is Upton Sinclair by James Lambert Harte.
Other books behind this year’s Oscars.
• Atonement by Ian McEwan - here is our signed copies.
• No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy - more signed copies, watch out…they’re not cheap.
• The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman - signed copies.
• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby - first editions.
• Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile - first editions.
