The Jungle by Sinclair, Upton - 1906

New York: The Jungle Publishing Co, 1906. First edition. leather_bound. Full blue morocco, marbled endpapers. Aeg. Fine. 413 pages. 19.5 x 13 cm. Presentation copy, inscribed in blue ink "With Best Wishes Upton Sinclair." Bound by Baynton and stamp signed by Baynton for Samuel E. Zeitlin, Chicago. Julius (J. A.) Wayland published Appeal to Reason, a weekly progressive newspaper for the American Midwest. With his editor, Fred Warren, he printed an article by Sinclair about the striking stockyard workers in Chicago in 1904. Based on the paper's readers' reaction, Wayland and Warren solicited a book-length work on the "wage slavery" of the early-twentieth century worker. The Jungle, what Sinclair submitted, was published to acclaim in 1906 and quickly became one of the most significant American social novels. Raised bands, spine panels decorated and lettered in gilt with brown morocco title labels, inner dentelles, gilt cover border panels.