The People of the Abyss

In 1902, Jack London purchased some secondhand clothes and, posing as a stranded American sailor, set out to discover how the London poor lived. His research makes shocking reading. Moving through the slums as one of the poor; eating, drinking, and socializing with the underclass; lining up to get into a flophouse, London was scandalized and brutalized by the experience of living rough in Britain’s capital. His clear-eyed reflections on the iniquities of class are a shaming testament to the persistence of social inequality in modern times.

A facsimile of the 1903 edition, this firsthand report of the plight of the poor at the end of the 19th century in the East End of London is a powerful indictment of economic injustice in the industrialized West.