Jungle

Upton Sinclair was born of a prominent but impoverished family in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 20, 1878. At the age of fifteen he began writing dime novels in order to pay his way through the College of the City of New York. While doing graduate work at Columbia University, he wrote six novels, including King Midas (1901), The Journal of Arthur Stirling (1903), and Manassas (1904). In 1906, he published The Jungle, the first indication of his conversion to socialism; this realistic study of inhuman conditions in the Chicago stockyards aided in the passage of the pure food laws and won Sinclair wide literary recognition. He invested the money he made from its sale in a Utopian experiment, the Helicon Hall Colony at Englewood, New Jersey. In 1915, he moved to California, where he later conducted four unsuccessful campaigns for public office. Between 1917 and 1927, he wrote a series of pamphlets on various aspects of American life: The Profits of Religion (1918); The Brass Check (1919), a study of journalism; The Goose-Step (1923) and The Goslings (1924), dealing with education; Mammonart (1925); and Money Writes! (1927). In 1934, he united large sections of the unemployed and progressive elements in an EPIC (End Poverty in California) league, which captured the Democratic party machinery and nearly won him the governorship of California. Later books include World's End (1940); Dragon's Teeth (1942), for which he was awarded a Pulitzer Prize; O Shepherd, Speak! (1949); and Another Pamela (1950).Sinclair, Upton is the author of 'Jungle', published 2001 under ISBN 9780451528049 and ISBN 0451528042.