The Jungle (First Edition) (The Norton Library)

An unsparing exposé of the exploitative practices of Chicago’s meatpacking industry at the turn of the twentieth century, Upton Sinclair’s account of the downtrodden immigrant workers in The Jungle (1906) “aimed at the public’s heart and by accident…hit it in the stomach.” Sinclair’s visceral description of the fetid and filthy stockyards sparked widespread outrage and led to the passage of the nation’s first consumer protection laws, cementing The Jungle as one of the most influential novels of the twentieth century.