''The People of the Abyss'' (1903) is a book by

Jack London John Griffith Chaney (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), better known as Jack London, was an American novelist, journalist and activist. A pioneer of commercial fiction and American magazines, he was one of the first American authors to ...

, containing his first-hand account of several weeks spent living in the

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

district of the

East End of London The East End of London, often referred to within the London area simply as the East End, is the historic core of wider East London, east of the Roman and medieval walls of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It does not have uni ...

in 1902. London attempted to understand the working-class of this deprived area of the city, sleeping in

workhouse In Britain, a workhouse () was an institution where those unable to support themselves financially were offered accommodation and employment. (In Scotland, they were usually known as poorhouses.) The earliest known use of the term ''workhouse'' ...

s or on the streets, and staying as a lodger with a poor family. The conditions he experienced and wrote about were the same as those endured by an estimated 500,000 of the contemporary London poor.

Antecedents and legacy

There had been several previous accounts of slum conditions in England, notably ''

The Condition of the Working Class in England ''The Condition of the Working Class in England'' (german: Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England) is an 1845 book by the German philosopher Friedrich Engels, a study of the industrial working class in Victorian England. Engels' first book, ...

'' (1845) by

Friedrich Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
'' Jacob Riis Jacob August Riis ( ; May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914) was a Danish-American social reformer, "muckraking" journalist and social documentary photographer. He contributed significantly to the cause of urban reform in America at the turn of the twen ...

's sensational ''

How the Other Half Lives ''How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York'' (1890) is an early publication of photojournalism by Jacob Riis, documenting squalid living conditions in New York City slums in the 1880s. The photographs served as a basis ...

'' (1890), which had documented life in the slums of

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

in the 1880s.

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...

was inspired by ''The People of the Abyss,'' which he had read in his teens. In the 1930s, he began disguising himself as a derelict and made tramping expeditions into the poor section of London. The influence of ''The People of the Abyss'' can be seen in ''

Down and Out in Paris and London ''Down and Out in Paris and London'' is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933. It is a memoir in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. Its target audience was the middle- and upper-cl ...

'' and ''

The Road to Wigan Pier ''The Road to Wigan Pier'' is a book by the English writer George Orwell, first published in 1937. The first half of this work documents his sociological investigations of the bleak living conditions among the working class in Lancashire and Yor ...

''. Reviewing the book for the ''

Daily Express The ''Daily Express'' is a national daily United Kingdom middle-market newspaper printed in tabloid format. Published in London, it is the flagship of Express Newspapers, owned by publisher Reach plc. It was first published as a broadsheet i ...

'', journalist and editor

Bertram Fletcher Robinson Bertram Fletcher Robinson (22 August 1870 – 21 January 1907) was an English sportsman, journalist, author and Liberal Unionist Party campaigner. Between 1893 and 1907, he wrote nearly three hundred items, including a series of short stories th ...

wrote that it would be "difficult to find a more depressing volume".

Phraseology

When London wrote the book, the phrase "the

Abyss Abyss may refer to: * Abyss (religion), a bottomless pit, or a passage to the underworld Film and television * ''The Abyss'' (1910 film), a Danish silent film starring Asta Nielsen * ''The Abyss'' (1988 film) (''L'Œuvre au noir''), a French- ...

," with its connotation of

Hell In religion and folklore, hell is a location in the afterlife in which evil souls are subjected to punitive suffering, most often through torture, as eternal punishment after death. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hell ...

, was in wide use to refer to the life of the urban poor. It featured in

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

Anticipations ''Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought'', generally known as ''Anticipations'', was written by H.G. Wells at the age of 34. He later called the book, which became a bestseller, "the keys ...

'' multiple times, along with the phrase "the People of the Abyss", which he would use again in Chapter 3 of ''

Mankind in the Making ''Mankind in the Making'' (1903) is H.G. Wells's sequel to '' Anticipations'' (1901). ''Mankind in the Making'' analyzes the "process" of "man's making," i.e. "the great complex of circumstances which mould the vague possibilities of the average ...

'' (1903). In 1907 London used the expression "the people of the abyss" in ''

The Iron Heel ''The Iron Heel'' is a political novel in the form of science fiction by American writer Jack London, first published in 1908.Kershaw, Alex. ''Jack London: A Life''. London: HarperCollins, 1997: 164. Background The main premise of the book i ...

'', a work of

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

set in the United States.Theodore Dalrymple, "The Dystopian Imagination," in ''Our Culture, What's Left of It'' (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2005)}, p. 106.

Bibliography

* Rees, Rosemary; Shephard, Colin, "OCR British Depth Study 1906-1918: British Society in Change", London : Hodder Murray, Jan 23, 2002, Reference - Page 10 Source 4

References

External links

*
Online text of the 1903 edition
of ''The People of the Abyss'', with illustrations {{DEFAULTSORT:People of the Abyss 1903 non-fiction books 1903 in England Books about poverty Books by Jack London English non-fiction books History of the City of London History of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets Poverty in England Slums in Europe Whitechapel Working class in England Non-fiction books about immigration

Antecedents and legacy

Phraseology

Bibliography

See also

References

External links