The Jungle Format: Paperback

“The definitive edition of one of the twentieth century’s most politically engaged novels. Eby does a masterful job of situating Sinclair in his multiple social and aesthetic contexts, and her selection of critical commentary illuminates The Jungle’s continuing relevance to discussions on literature’s precise relation to socialist politics.” ―Kinohi Nishikawa, Princeton University 

This Norton Critical Edition includes:

The Doubleday, Page and Company edition of The Jungle, published in 1906.

Revised and expanded introduction, headnotes, and explanatory annotations by Clare Virginia Eby.

Thematically organized contexts and criticism with more than twenty new voices represented, among them Marion Nestle, Thomas Piketty, Michael Pollan, and Alison Hope Alkon and Julian Agyeman. Topics include “Capitalism,” “Immigration and Labor,” “Nature,” and “Upton Sinclair and Literary Progressivism.”

A chronology of Upton Sinclair’s life and work and a selected bibliography.

About the Series

Read by more than 12 million students over fifty-five years, Norton Critical Editions set the standard for apparatus that is right for undergraduate readers. The three-part format―annotated text, contexts, and criticism―helps students to better understand, analyze, and appreciate the literature, while opening a wide range of teaching possibilities for instructors. Whether in print or in digital format, Norton Critical Editions provide all the resources students need.

“I think it’s a beautifully constructed text. My hope is always that the student will get curious and read more of the added material. [The introduction is a] great overview of all of the important points. Indeed, that is why we assigned this edition.” ―Renee Sentilles, Case Western Reserve University

“I found the edition really effective. I found the included materials widely representative and eye-opening for my students. Highly effective edition. An impressive edition.” ―Miranda Yaggai, Indiana State University

“The introduction provides a concise contextual setup to the novel that would benefit students as they begin the novel. I would assign the note on the text to students. I think the history of the manuscript itself and how it came to be is interesting and adds some depth to the historical context of the material. I think the editorial annotations are excellent. I find these [headnotes] concise and effective, and I find such notes help with student comprehension. I find the text to be organized extremely well. The supplemental readings work well together.” ―Patrick Williams, Wake Technical Community College

“[The editorial annotations are] excellent and judicious. It’s an excellent edition.” ―Mark Cirino, University of Evansville

Upton Sinclair was born on September 20, 1878, in Baltimore, Maryland, the only child of a poor liquor salesman and his wife. He attended both the College of the City of New York and Columbia University. In 1906, Sinclair published The Jungle, a muckraking exposé of Chicago’s meatpacking district. An immediate bestseller, it prompted widespread public outrage and led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906. An ardent socialist and political activist, Sinclair ran for office several times. His large body of work includes the novels King Coal (1917), The Brass Check (1919), and the Pulitzer Prize–winning Dragon’s Teeth (1942). He died on November 25, 1968, in Bound Brook, New Jersey.

Clare Virginia Eby is a professor of English at the University of Connecticut. She is the author of Until Choice Do Us Part: Marriage in the Progressive Era and Dreiser and Veblen, Saboteurs of the Status Quo; editor of the Dreiser edition of Theodore Dreiser’s The Genius; and coeditor of The Cambridge History of the American Novel.