The People of the Abyss

To investigate poverty at the heart of the world’s richest empire, Jack London disguised himself and lived among the destitute of London’s East End slums, and this searing firsthand account records the hunger, squalor, and quiet desperation he found there. Combining vivid reportage with fierce social outrage, he exposes the human cost of industrial capitalism with unforgettable immediacy. A landmark of investigative journalism and social criticism, The People of the Abyss remains a powerful indictment of inequality. Compassionate and angry, it reveals London the reformer and reporter, bearing witness to suffering that respectable society preferred not to see.