The People of the Abyss - Couverture rigide

London, Jack

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 1598181521 ISBN 13 : 9781598181524

Editeur : Alan Rodgers Books, 2006

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

How is this book unique?

1. Font adjustments & biography included
2. Unabridged (100% Original content)
3. Illustrated

About The People of the Abyss by Jack London

"The People of the Abyss (1903) is a book by Jack London about life in the East End of London in 1902. He wrote this first-hand account after living in the East End (including the Whitechapel District) for several months, sometimes staying in workhouses or sleeping on the streets. The conditions he experienced and wrote about were the same as those endured by an estimated 500,000 of the contemporary London poor. There had been several previous accounts of slum conditions in England, most notably The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844 by Friedrich Engels. However, most of these were based on secondhand sources. Jack London's account was based on the firsthand experience of the writer, and proved to be more popular. Jacob Riis's sensational How the Other Half Lives (1890) has been suggested as a source of inspiration for The People of the Abyss. A contemporary advertisement for Jack London's book said that it ""tingles"" with the ""directness only possible from a man who knows London as Jacob Riis knows New York,"" suggesting that his publisher, at least, perceived a resemblance. When London wrote The People of the Abyss, the phrase ""the Abyss,"" with its hellish connotation, was in wide use to refer to the life of the urban poor. H. G. Wells's popular 1901 book, Anticipations, uses the expression in this sense some twenty-five times, and uses the phrase ""the People of the Abyss"" eight times. One writer, analyzing The Iron Heel, refers to ""the People of the Abyss"" as ""H. G. Wells' phrase."" George Orwell was inspired by The People of the Abyss, which he read in his teens, and in the 1930s he began disguising himself as a derelict and made tramping expeditions into the poor section of London himself, in emulation of Jack London. The influence of The People of the Abyss can be seen in Down and Out in Paris and London and The Road to Wigan Pier.The British newspaper journalist and editor Bertram Fletcher Robinson wrote a review of The People of the Abyss for the London Daily Express newspaper. In this piece, Fletcher Robinson states that it would be ""difficult to find a more depressing volume."""

Présentation de l'éditeur :

The experiences related in this volume fell to me in the summer of 1902. I went down into the under-world of London with an attitude of mind which I may best liken to that of the explorer. I was open to be convinced by the evidence of my eyes, rather than by the teachings of those who had not seen, or by the words of those who had seen and gone before. Further, I took with me certain simple criteria with which to measure the life of the under-world. That which made for more life, for physical and spiritual health, was good; that which made for less life, which hurt, and dwarfed, and distorted life, was bad.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Alan Rodgers Books
• Date d'édition: 2006
• ISBN 10: 1598181521
• ISBN 13: 9781598181524
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 208