The Jungle (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (Paperback)

~ Upton Sinclair (Author), Charles Burns (Illustrator), Eric Schlosser (Introduction) "It was four o'clock when the ceremony was over and the carriages began to arrive..." (more)
Key Phrases: ole chappie, killing beds, fertilizer mill, Teta Elzbieta, Master Freddie, Mike Scully (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Documenting the brutal conditions in the Chicago stockyards at the turn of the century, this centennial edition of The Jungle brings into sharp moral focus the appalling odds against which immigrants and other working people struggled for their share of the American dream.

About the Author

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning author. The Jungle helped in the passage of the pure-food laws during the Progressive Era.

Eric Schlosser is a journalist and the New York Times bestselling author of Fast Food Nation. He began his journalism career at the Atlantic Monthly.

Charles Burns, a former contributor to Art Spiegelman’s Raw magazine, is an illustrator whose work has included the covers of major magazines and CDs. His most well- known comics are Black Hole, Big Baby, and Skin Deep.

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (March 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 014303958X
• ISBN-13: 978-0143039587
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #160,539 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Eye Opener, March 15, 2006

By	K. Jarvis "Orchidsand" (Margate, FL United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For me this book was a real eye opener in relation three areas. 1.Immigrant life in the 1800s. It is a sad commentary on the US governement, and how they allowed people to be treated as nothing more than animals. It makes one appreciate the struggles our ancestors went through to make a life for themselves and their future families. 2. The roots of Unions for the US workers. 3. The method used to process meat. Hopefully it has significantly improved since that time period...it's amazing more people didn't die from the food they ate. It has been more than a year since I read the book and still look hesitantly at the meat counter. The story is a good reason to consider becoming a vegetarian.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Eye Opening, except the ending, December 19, 2006

By	Jody (Falls Church, VA United States) - See all my reviews

I have been meaning to read this book for years as it's always been heralded as a monumental book that changed the meat packing industry and workers' rights in the early 20th century. Upon finally reading it this year (2006) I was stunned - mainly because I had read Fast Food Nation a few years ago and many things described in The Jungle had similarily been described in Fast Food Nation, which was written in 2005. The workers have simply shifted - instead of coming from Europe they are now from Mexico and other Latin American countries.

No doubt this book is eye opening - to the struggle of immigrants looking for a better place, to workers' rights (and lack thereof), to regulations of the food industry, to bribery and general disregard of the law due to greed. The ordeals and struggles Jurgis deals with are unbelieveable and when reading you'll keep thinking "Well, it can't get any worse" and yet somehow it does.

I did have a few difficulties in reading the book. First, for some reason I had (wrongly) assumed this was a non-fiction book ever since I read about it in Jr. High History class. This is a fiction novel, however it is based on Sinclair's studies of the meat packing industry and the tenements. Second, the characters are mostly of Lithuanian descent with extremely complex names. I had a bit of trouble keeping up with who everyone was in the beginning and kept getting everyone confused for the first 50 or so pages.

A general dislike from many readers is the ending. Throughout the book, Jurgis is depicted a simple country man, just wanting to earn a decent living and support his family. You do see his evolution in learning how to "work the system" to his advantage as he becomes more and more disenchanted with his new surroundings. Towards the end of the book, he finds Socialism. However, it's almost as if Sinclair forgets who his character is. While Jurgis might have found Socialism on his own and become extremely passionate, he would not have spoke in such educated and expressive words that Sinclair portrays. The end comes across as feeling "tacked on" by Sinclair himself and seem as if you are reading the end of a completely different novel. Still, this book is worth the read for the first several hundred pages anyway.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A historical book that reformed the meat processing industry., November 11, 2008

By	G. C. Picchetti (Country Lost Face) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

President Theodore Roosevelt had the meat industry investigated because of The Jungle while at the same time lecturing Sinclair against socialism. I find it unsettling the socialist lecturer in The Jungle and Henry George, (Progress & Poverty) promise almost the same results. I really hated the last chapter's talk of communal living which are called economies of cooperation in the book.
Let me not throw out the baby with the bath water. The Jungle is an excellent example of the stockyards in Chicago in that era. Immigrants and animals were living an endless nightmare of poverty, filth, & pain. In researching an article about our grandfather in Chicago newspaper archives on micro fiche frequently I found articles where all who ate in the same restaurant or from the same food market simply dropped dead in the same day or slowly & painfully over a couple days from food poisoning.
I did like the last chapter (the socialist push) where the speaker speaks of the natural diet which includes eating less meat. Much of our land & water & wildlife is spoiled from over breeding & over grazing of farm animals. There is no need to eat animal protein at every meal. It's not healthy not to eat fruits & vegetables & grains.
This book also might have been a major factor not only in food processing reform but also in the formation of unions. Denigrate unions all you want but because of unions workers have an advocate.
I gave The Jungle 4 stars instead of five stars because Upton Sinclair did not argue for Henry George, the author of Progress and Poverty. If you read it you will first want to read Bob Drake's edition. It's a difference of six hundred pages of very old english language verses two hundred pages of now speak.Progress and Poverty - edited and abridged for modern readers by Bob Drake