The Jungle cover

The Jungle

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)

Original en 149114 words First published 1906 United States

Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, written after seven weeks of research in the Chicago stockyards, and the book that put the meat-packing industry on trial. Jurgis Rudkus arrives from Lithuania with his family and a boundless faith in America; Packingtown answers with piecework, graft, spoiled meat, ruined bodies and a court that fines the injured. Sinclair intended a cry for the working class — "I aimed at the public's heart," he said afterwards, "and by accident I hit it in the stomach" — and the outcry over his inspection chapters helped carry the Pure Food and Drug Act into law in the same year.

Text sourced from Project Gutenberg (public domain in the United States); the Project Gutenberg trademark and license text have been removed on import. Public-domain status determined by the author's death year + 50 years rule.

Table of Contents

  1. 001 CHAPTER I It was four o’clock when the ceremony was over and the… 2626 words
  2. 002 Little Ona is too excited to eat. 2521 words
  3. 003 It is very imprudent, it is tragic—but, ah, it is so beautiful! 2600 words
  4. 004 All this interrupts the music for not more than a minute or two. 2586 words
  5. 005 A full hour before the party reached the city they had begun to note… 2510 words
  6. 006 “Speak English?” “No; Lit-uanian.” (Jurgis had studied this word… 2605 words
  7. 007 Before the carcass was admitted here, however, it had to pass a… 2516 words
  8. 008 At home, also, there was more good news; so much of it at once that… 2655 words
  9. 009 Still, they were peasant people, and they hung on to their money by… 2656 words
  10. 010 Among these importunate signs was one that had caught the attention… 2706 words
  11. 011 Jurgis would find out these things for himself, if he stayed there… 2688 words
  12. 012 Grandmother Majauszkiene saw that her friends were puzzled at this… 2681 words
  13. 013 And so, after little Stanislovas had stood gazing timidly about him… 2901 words
  14. 014 Now the dreadful winter was come upon them. 2592 words
  15. 015 Then there were other benefits accruing to Marija from this… 2726 words
  16. 016 He never missed a meeting, however. 2627 words
  17. 017 Section 25. A microscopic examination for trichinae shall be made of… 2814 words
  18. 018 Perhaps the summertime suggests to you thoughts of the country… 2521 words
  19. 019 Jurgis had, alas, very little time to see his baby; he never felt the… 2759 words
  20. 020 That blizzard knocked many a man out, for the crowd outside begging… 2525 words
  21. 021 One of the consequences of this episode was that the first joints of… 2708 words
  22. 022 CHAPTER XIII During this time that Jurgis was looking for work… 2762 words
  23. 023 Little Kotrina was like most children of the poor, prematurely made… 2523 words
  24. 024 It was not an easy thing for Jurgis to take more than two or three drinks. 2509 words
  25. 025 He was so glad to get her back that he could not think clearly about anything else. 2513 words
  26. 026 She sank down upon the floor, beginning to cry again. 2739 words
  27. 027 And they would lose it all; they would be turned out into the… 2572 words
  28. 028 Soon after he went back to his cell, a keeper opened the door to let in another prisoner. 2628 words
  29. 029 Ten days of his thirty Jurgis spent thus, without hearing a word from… 2507 words
  30. 030 He came a couple of steps nearer. 2601 words
  31. 031 “And the children?” cried Jurgis. 2517 words
  32. 032 “I want to go home,” Jurgis said. 2722 words
  33. 033 But with Ona’s dead body beneath his eyes, Jurgis could not well… 2720 words
  34. 034 These, however, were all slight matters to a man who had escaped from… 2678 words
  35. 035 They went through the blast furnaces, through rolling mills where… 2611 words
  36. 036 So he went on, tearing up all the flowers from the garden of his… 2592 words
  37. 037 It was in the latter part of July, when Jurgis was in Missouri, that… 2575 words
  38. 038 This was an unfortunate decision, however, for it drove him more… 2628 words
  39. 039 Poor Jurgis might have been expected to make a successful beggar. 2527 words
  40. 040 They stood for a moment blinking in the light. 2512 words
  41. 041 “What for?” he cried; and then understanding that the fellow proposed… 2580 words
  42. 042 The address Jurgis had was a garret room in the Ghetto district, the… 2709 words
  43. 043 For his help in this little job, the bartender received twenty out of… 2784 words
  44. 044 The chairman was still more worried when the monster torchlight… 2523 words
  45. 045 Jurgis was to see more of this as time passed. 2662 words
  46. 046 The “Union Stockyards” were never a pleasant place; but now they were… 2615 words
  47. 047 Jurgis became once more a besieger of factory gates. 2516 words
  48. 048 Jurgis gave a start. “Marija!” he exclaimed. “Yes,” said Alena; “and… 2802 words
  49. 049 All these emotions had become strangers to the soul of Jurgis; it was… 2590 words
  50. 050 And then suddenly came a voice in his ear, a woman’s voice, gentle… 3462 words
  51. 051 And the speaker’s voice broke suddenly, with the stress of his… 2621 words
  52. 052 Ostrinski explained the organization of the party, the machinery by… 2529 words
  53. 053 Tommy Hinds had set out upon the trail of the Octopus as soon as the war was over. 2630 words
  54. 054 Sometimes the agony of such things as this was almost more than… 2663 words
  55. 055 There was the host himself, a tall, athletic young man, clad in… 2651 words
  56. 056 And then Schliemann went on to outline some of the wastes of… 2640 words
  57. 057 And here the Herr Doctor relapsed into silence again. 1178 words