A fictionalized account of an industrialist, shelved when first written around 1901-1902 because it seemed too radical, but more fitting after Steffens, Tarbell, and others had exposed corporate corruption. Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) was a prolific American novelist, essayist, playwright, short story writer, and juvenile book writer, whose works reflected the social problems of 19th Century industry. His two great boyhood heroes were Jesus Christ and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His novel Dragon's Teeth (1942) on the rise of Nazism won him the Pulitzer Prize. By the time Upton Sinclair died in...

A "Personal Jesus" takes the life of Jesus as Upton Sinclair imagines him to be. Sinclair breaks up this novel into 3 sections- youth, mission and spirit. Again, he delves into religon and leaves his usual path of politics - but are not religions - Christianity, Judism and Islam political? A good question throughout history and especially in our modern times. As Sinclair says in the preface "the story of Jesus cannot be told without controversy, for controversy is the very essence of it." As a reviewer said, "Sinclair was a giant and this novel comes close to who Jesus was as a person than...

This novel originates from the 'Teapot Dome' oil scandal of President Warren Harding as oil barons bribe politicians. It is about greed and the oil boom of Southern California in the 1920's. It is wrapped up in evangelic crusades by shifty preachers and leftist labor activists. "Oil" is a provoking novel as a man and his son plunge into the oil drilling business and all that they do and what is around them. Bunny the son becomes a 'red millionaire' and is a radical strike leader. The 2007 highly acclaimed movie "There Will Be Blood" directed by Paul Thomas Anderson and staring Daniel...

Upton Sinclair (1878 - 1968) wrote over 90 books in several genres. He was considered to be a leading social advocate. Because of his novel The Jungle, which dealt with conditions in the meat packing industry, The Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act were passed. A captain of industry is a fictionalized account of an industrialist. The book gained in its acceptance after several men exposed examples of corporate corruption. When Robby falls in love with a poor girl his father pays her off and sends her away. After the death of his father Robby becomes a captain of industry. At...

A Captain of Industry: Being the Story of a Civilized Man is a tale about a spoiled but good natured son of a corrupt industrialist who manipulates the stock market for his own amusement and gain. He dismisses his ex-fiance who is dying of consumption and pleads with him to look after the daughter they had together years whom he never knew. He loses his millions through fraudulent market transactions only earn it back, destroying other companies in the process. Upton Beall Sinclair Jr. was an American author who wrote close to one hundred books in vairous genres. He achieved popularity in the...

"Practically alone among the American writers of his generation, Sinclair] put to the American public the fundamental questions raised by capitalism in such a way that they could not escape them." --Edmund Wilson

When it was first published in 1906, The Jungle exposed the inhumane conditions of Chicago's stockyards and the laborer's struggle against industry and "wage slavery." It was an immediate bestseller and led to new regulations that forever changed workers' rights and the meatpacking industry. A direct descendant of Dickens's Hard Times, it remains the most...

Arthur Stirling was entirely a self-educated man; he had worked at I know not how many impossible occupations, and labored in the night-time like the heroes one reads about. He taught himself to read five languages
Arthur Stirling was a man lost in his art just so--so full of it, so drunk with it, that nothing in life had other meaning to him. To quote the words he loved, from the last of his heroes, he longed for excellence "as the lion longs for his food."
So he lived and so he worked; the world had no use for his work, and so he died.
Upton Sinclair was a Pulitzer Prize-winning who wrote...

Hold on to your hats for a ride through the injustices of 1900s America courtesy of Upton Sinclair, (1878 - 1968), an American author and commentator who wrote nearly 100 books. Not only did he write amazing stories and expose dreadful truths, he changed America for good, the public uproar resulting from his books caused Laws to be passed and greater justice was the outcome. In 'The Jungle' we meet a young Lithuanian immigrant who arrives in America, hoping to find the land of opportunity. He works in the Chicago stockyards, where he finds himself treated as a slave; he has, in fact, arrived...