The Jungle

Upton Sinclair’s 1906 satire depicting the working conditions of life in the Chicago stockyards is one of the most controversial novels ever written. It depicts with vivid and brutal realism the experiences of a Slavic immigrant, Jurgis Rudkus, and his wife, Ona. In a contemporary review author Jack London declared The Jungle to be, "the Uncle Tom's Cabin of wage slavery." A film version of the novel was made in 1914 but has since become lost.