The Jungle, Literary Touchstone Edition - Softcover

Upton Sinclair

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1580493955 ISBN 13: 9781580493956

Publisher: Prestwick House, Inc., 2005

Synopsis

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.

About this title

From the Publisher:

This book is perfect for AP classes and is often selected for inclusion on the AP exam. The notes, reading pointers, and vocabulary in this addition will also help students at a lower reading level get the most out of these classics.

From the Back Cover:

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

About this edition

• Publisher: Prestwick House, Inc.
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1580493955
• ISBN 13: 9781580493956
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 334