The People of the Abyss
by Jack London
A profound and poignant investigative journalistic work, Jack London's exploration of the London underworld remains a timely explanation of poverty and injustice, a century after it was written. In 1902, Jack London bought some used clothes, rented a room on the East Side, and set out to find out how London's poor lived. His research makes for a shocking read. Wandering through the slums as one of the poor; eating, drinking and communicating with the lower class; London, waiting in line to enter the Doss house, was scandalous and brutal because of his experience of living in the British capital. His open-eyed thoughts on class lawlessness are shameful evidence that social inequality persists in modern Britain.
