The Jungle

New York: Doubleday, 1906. First Edition. hardcover. fine/good. 1st edition, 1st printing, the trade issue (there was also a subscriber's issue from this same printing, but all copies were printed by Doubleday and ours is the 1st state with the Doubleday imprint on title page and "1" in the date on the copyright page in perfect type). Former owner's stamp to endpaper, else fine (the white stamping to the cloth is unworn), in a dustjacket that's been restored but with no facsimile and it is a rare jacket with no sales at auction going back 50 years. In a visual aid to authenticity, offsetting from the jacket flaps to the endpapers confirms that this jacket was always on this copy of the book. A transcendent copy for this 1st edition. Arguably the most widely influential 20th century book published in America, expectedly awakening the public to corruption in the meat trust while unexpectedly begetting fundamental Federal action with the Pure Food and Drug Act. And though this kind of government regulation was branded as communism in the 1950s, it wasn't. And by the way, who'd have ever guessed that the fatal flaw of communism would be that there wasn't any money in it?

President Theodore Roosevelt was so shocked by what he read that he forced a clean meat act through congress (expanded to oversee all Food and Drugs), with all the far-reaching applications that implies.

Later in life, Sinclair said of his masterpiece: "I aimed at the public's heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach.".