The Jungle: 51 (Knickerbocker Classics)

First serialized in a newspaper in 1905, The Jungle is a classic of American literature that led to the creation of food-safety standards.

While investigating the meatpacking industry in Chicago, author and novelist Upton Sinclair discovered the brutal conditions that immigrant families faced. While his original intention was to bring this to the attention of the American public, his book was instead hailed for bringing food safety to the forefront of people’s consciousness.

With its inspired plot and vivid descriptions, Upton Sinclair’s classic tale of immigrant woe is now available as an elegantly designed clothbound edition with an elastic closure and a new introduction.

The Knickerbocker Classics bring together the works of classic authors from around the world in stunning gift editions to be collected and enjoyed. Complete and unabridged, these elegantly designed cloth-bound hardcovers feature a slipcase and ribbon marker, as well as a comprehensive introduction providing the reader with enlightening information on the author's life and works.
 

Upton Sinclair Jr. (1878-1968) was an American journalist and novelist who wrote nearly one hundred books. Among his famous writings are his classic muckraking novel, The Jungle, which exposed the brutal conditions faced by immigrant workers in early-twentieth-century America. It garnered public attention, however, for portraying the brutal, unsanitary conditions of the meat packing industry in the United States. Speaking about The Jungle, Sinclair famously stated, “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
 Bill Savage is associate professor of instruction in the English Department at Northwestern University, where he teaches the course “The Chicago Way”: Urban Spaces and American Values. He researches and writes about how Americans construct identity in a dynamic interplay between groups and individuals in a variety of city spaces and places, from parks and beaches to factory floors and saloons. He has coedited two critical editions of works by Chicago writer Nelson Algren, the fiftieth anniversary critical edition of The Man with the Golden Arm, and the annotated Chicago: City on the Make.