Upton Sinclair

A child of privilege plunges into a world of oppression, violence, and danger in this gripping indictment of the coal-mining industry from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Jungle College leaves young Hal Warner feeling incomplete, with no sense of the "real" world outside its ivy-covered walls. So he leaves his life of privilege behind and signs on to work in a coal mine owned and operated by the General Fuel Company. But Hal finds out that...

Sinclair's novel follows the journey of Samuel Prescott, an idealistic young farm boy who strikes out on his own to strike it rich when his father dies shortly after losing all of his savings in a bad stock market investment. What would typically be a rags-to-riches story becomes a rags-to-rags exercise in futility, as Samuel is confronted with every form of social injustice and societal ill that you can imagine. Upton introduces Samuel to the reader...

This autobiographical novel, published in 1911, follows the relationship of Thyrsis, a writer struggling to reconcile his literary aspirations with commercial success, and Corydon, his tempestuous love interest. Written with a frankness that shocked reviewers of the day, Love's Pilgrimage is a provocative chronicle of the embattled and ultimately doomed relationship that the author shared with his first wife.

Upton Sinclair's novel, 100%: The Story of a Patriot, follows young Peter Gudge, a poor and uneducated man living in America during the first World War. After being in the wrong place at the wrong time, Peter falls victim to false allegations of domestic terrorism. As a result, Peter must abandon his old ignorance to political issues. While becoming involved in politics and the government, Peter is swept into a plot to spy on the Socialist Party,...

A great expose about the perils of gonorrhoea -- estimated that at the time, 70-90% of men had it (even the doctor who provided that estimate had it). Women were kept in the dark -- didn't want to corrupt their innocence. Women were to be subservient to their husbands -- but with the help of an older woman, a suffragette who worked to eliminate child labor, Sylvia fought against society's norms. A great book that demonstrates how far women have come...

A muckraking exposé of corruption in American journalism from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Jungle Upton Sinclair dedicated his life to documenting the destructive force of unbridled capitalism. In this influential study, he takes on the effect of money and power on mass media, arguing that the newspapers, magazines, and wire services of the Progressive era formed "a class institution serving the rich and spurning the poor."   In the...

Upton Sinclair's The Book of Life is a contains well founded advice and consists of two parts. The first part, Book of the Mind, covers spiritual topics such as faith, morality, and the subconscious. With intense conversations on the definition of each as well as their relationship and codependence on each other, Sinclair answers tough life questions and provides many thought-provoking ideas. While the first part of Sinclair's work concerns the intangibles...

An eye-opening condemnation of the economic sins of organized religion Throughout his adult life Upton Sinclair was an unapologetic idealist and a tireless crusader for the rights of the common man. In this powerful and scrupulously researched critique, he argues that organized religion is a gargantuan moneymaking operation in collusion with industry in their shared quest to strike down dissent while bleeding profits from the millions in their thrall....

It was that time of year when all the world belongs to poets, for their harvest of joy; when those who seek the country not for beauty, but for coolness, have as yet thought nothing about it, and when those who dwell in it all the time are too busy planting for another harvest to have any thought of poets; so that the latter, and the few others who keep something in their hearts to chime with the great spring-music, have the woods and waters all for...

In the early part of the twentieth century, Upton Sinclair earned a reputation as a prolific writer, committed socialist, and political activist. He gained enormous popularity when his eloquent 1906 novel The Jungle exposed conditions in the U.S. meat-packing industry, and years later, he earned a Pulitzer Prize for his series tale, Dragon's Teeth. In The Money Changers, Sinclair explores the Wall Street panic of 1907 in novel form, exposing greed...