The people of the abyss ([Edinburgh library of non-fiction books]) [Hardcover]

Jack London (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1917 | Series: [Edinburgh library of non-fiction books]

London wrote this book after passing a American sailor stranded in London in 1902. He had been sleeping in flop houses and living among the destitute. A classic novel that can be seen in light of the people who live in the abyss of poverty.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'No other book of mine took so much of my young heart and tears as that study of the economic degradation of the poor.' Jack London; 'In 1902, Jack London, posing as an out-of-work sailor, went underground into the belly of the beast: the slums of London's East End. With passion and vision, he used his skill as a journalist to expose the horrors of the Abyss to the world... He gained an insight into the slum life which remains unique. By interweaving the personal stories of the people he encountered with political analysis, he produced a vibrant work of nonfiction, which remains relevant to this day... Poverty is war, and it rages on with no end in sight, and the management is still guilty of mismanaging the wealth. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the People of the Abyss are among us today.' Tarnel Abbott, Great-granddaughter of Jack London, Contributing Editor, Jack London International (www.jack.london.org); With this reprinting of London's incredibly important and readable book, Pluto Press and London remind us of how economic exploitation must always be fought, that we must always be educated in the lives of the unfortunate.' James Williams, editor and publisher of the Jack London Journal; 'During my youth I walked the streets of East London, following in the footsteps of Jack London. He brought back, so movingly to this young reader, the poverty and suffering as well as the laughter and tears manifest in the outcasts and dispossessed... That book helped shatter the smug composure of Edwardian England, as well as providing a transatlantic best seller.' Professor William J. Fishman, Queen Mary and Westfield College --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From the Publisher

This book is in Electronic Paperback Format. If you view this book on any of the computer systems below, it will look like a book. Simple to run, no program to install. Just put the CD in your CDROM drive and start reading. The simple easy to use interface is child tested at pre-school levels.

Windows 3.11, Windows/95, Windows/98, OS/2 and MacIntosh and Linux with Windows Emulation.

Includes Quiet Vision's Dynamic Index. the abilty to build a index for any set of characters or words. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 366 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson and Sons (1917)
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0008CCVWU
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Shades of "The Jungle", February 26, 2002

By 

Christopher B. Jonnes (Stillwater, MN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The People of the Abyss (Paperback)

The Abyss was the poverty-stricken East End of London, England. The People were the unfortunate millions in the late 1800s and early 1900s who teetered on the edge, waiting for the all-too-common event--"the thing," as Jack called it--to send them careening over the edge from which there was virtually no hope of return. It could be loss of a job, an illness, a debilitating injury, or a family breadwinner's death. What followed was a slow descent into hell, a long, losing struggle for gainful employment, food, and shelter. The Abyss was a cesspool of misery, disease, crime, abject poverty, drunkenness, debauchery, and early death. According to Jack London (an American outsider), responsibility for it lay with the high and mighty managers of society, the rich politicians who largely wrote-off the district as an aberration created by those who inhabited it.

People of the Abyss is reminiscent of Upton Sinclair's classic about the Chicago meatpacking industry, written some decades later. I found it better written, more readable, and more convincing as an impetus for social change. Where Sinclair employed a fictional device to shock readers with deplorable working and living conditions around the stockyards, London's book is very much like a journalistic report, a book-length essay on his real-life, "undercover" experiences in the Abyss. Also, while both writers do more moralizing than is generally acceptable in today's literature, London does less of it than Sinclair does. Less exaggerating too.

The book has a lot of historical value, and makes an interesting read. It's fascinating to learn of the horrendous conditions suffered by millions of unfortunate Londoners a hundred years ago. The debate rages on as to whether present-day inner-city conditions have improved. --Christopher Bonn Jonnes, author of Wake Up Dead.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Profoundly contemporary, January 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The People of the Abyss (Paperback)

This was written at the beginning of this century, and yet, it speaks just as vividly to the conditions at end of the century. We are seeing the erosion and deterioration of all that was won through hard-fought labor battles: the end of the 8 hour work day; people working two jobs and still not being able to make ends meet; children left to their own devices as parents are stretched to the breaking point; the rise of infectious diseases, especially tuberculosis, as people are forced to live in more crowded, unsanitary conditions; the lack of healthcare; increasing numbers of people living on the street; and hunger. These were the conditions Jack London saw and described in East London at the turn of the century; but they could as easily have been New York City or any large American city; and they could be any large American city today.

Jack London was far more than just a writer of dog stories for boys, as he is so often thought to be. All his writings should be more widely read, and I commend the publishers for republishing this brilliant piece of "investigative journalism" by a great American writer.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful. Sadly more pertinant now than when it was written., July 24, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Staten Island, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The People of the Abyss (Paperback)

This is Jack London's first hand account of the living conditions of London's poor in 1901. He actually went to live among them. England was at the height of her empire and unable to alleviate the misery right on her own door step. The descriptions of privation physically affect the pit of the stomach, and the point of such horror being possible square in the middle of the pomp and perfumery of opulence is pressed home by London until the reader can feel nothing other but indignation. It is a sad tract about human greed and human suffering, and as long as homelessness and want are rampant, this little book will find readers.