Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$1250.00 + shipping
Description: Typewritten manuscript letter from Upton Sinclair to Thomas Wentworth Higginson regarding the publication of The Jungle with brief handwritten postscript at end. Dated March 3, 1906. On Intercollegiate Socialist Society letterhead (of which both were founding members). A wonderful link between two of the greatest activists of their different generations, along with contemporaneous commentary on the publication of Sinclair's most significant literary work. Text reads: 'My dear Col. Higginson: I sent you some copies of the circulars you asked for yesterday. I am in receipt of your letter about "The Jungle." I recognize to the full the difficulties of which you speak, but I did the best I could with the book. We shall soon know whether or not the defects are great enough to spoil it for its purpose. By the way, Doubleday, Page & Company are quoting the opinions which you kindly gave me in your earlier letter, and which you will note enclosed. I am not sure from your second letter whether you would care to have these used or not. Please act as your own judgment dictates and consider only the merits of the case.' [in Sinclair's handwriting at bottom:] 'If you don't mind, you needn't bother to reply!'
Seller: Open Boat Booksellers, Amherst, MA, U.S.A.
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Doubleday, New York, 1906.
Price: US$4000.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: First Edition, First Printing First Edition with unbroken type on the copyright page. This copy is SIGNED by Upton Sinclair on a tipped in signature. The book is in wonderful condition. The binding is tight, with light wear to the panels. The pages are clean with no writing, marks or bookplates in the book. A lovely copy SIGNED by the author.
Seller: Magnum Opus Rare Books, Missoula, MT, U.S.A.
Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. Doubleday, Page & Company, New York, 1906.
Price: US$4500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition, Doubleday, Page & Company issue, first issue with unbattered type on the copyright page. Signed by Upton Sinclair and inscribed on the front free endpaper to writer and poet Vernon Patterson, with Patterson's bookplate to the front pastedown. A pencil notation in Patterson's hand on the front free endpaper reads, "Autographed by U.S. at his home in Monrovia Dec. 2, 1962." Bound in publisher's original green cloth stamped in black and white. Very Good. Cloth rubbed at extremities, lightly stained at bottom of front cover, stamping heavily rubbed at spine and lightly so to front cover and pages toned.
Seller: Burnside Rare Books, ABAA, Portland, OR, U.S.A.
Sinclair, Upton. THE JUNGLE. The Jungle Publishing Co., New York, 1906.
Price: US$8500.00 + shipping
Description: Octavo, pp. [1-10] 1-413 [414: blank] [415-417: ads] [418: blank] [note: first leaf is a blank], original pictorial olive green cloth, front and spine panels stamped in black and white. First edition, first printing. A presentation copy with signed inscription by Sinclair to poet George Sterling on the front free endpaper: "To George Sterling / with the regards of / The Author." Below Sinclair's inscription Jack London has added a gift inscription: "Blessed Greek! / -- Wolf. / March 6, 1906." The projected publication date of the The Jungle Publishing Co. issue was 15 February 1906. The editions of The Jungle Publishing Co. and Doubleday, Page & Company were published simultaneously: Jungle's copies with integral title leaf and the "SUSTAINER'S EDITION" label on the front paste-down are the earliest, but the Doubleday, Page copies with tipped in title leaves precede Jungle's regular copies. Sinclair's best known and most popular novel. This exposé of the Chicago stockyards and packing houses, more a Socialist treatise than a work of fiction, led to the pure food campaign of the Theodore Roosevelt era. "Next to UNCLE TOM'S CABIN, the most famous propaganda novel in American literature." - Adams, Radical Literature in America, p. 59. "The UNCLE TOM'S CABIN of wage slavery!" - Jack London. "If Sinclair has never been a great creative novelist ., he has been something else of value -- one of the great information centers in American literature. Few American novelists have done more to make their fellow citizens conscious of the society, all of it, in which they live." - Rideout, The Radical Novel in the United States 1900-1954, pp. 30-38. Blake, p. 238. Coan, pp. 86; 214. Hanna 3234. Smith, American Fiction, 1901-1925 S-509. FPAA V, p. 298. This copy never had a "sustainer's" label affixed to front paste-down. After Sterling's death by suicide in 1926, the book passed into the hands of Edna R. Pierson, whose bookplate is affixed to the front paste-down. Below the bookplate is a lightly penciled note in Edna's hand that reads: "Mary Lofler, friend of Geo. Sterling's & also his landlady (& mine) gave me this in 1926." Edna has also identified "Blessed Greek" as "London's nick name for Sterling" and "Wolf" as "Jack London" Cloth worn at edges, delicate white chalk lettering perished from spine panel, early reinforcement of inner hinges with white paper tape, front hinge cracked again, still a sturdy copy. A small leaflet (90 x 153 mm), London's CIRCULATE "THE JUNGLE" (BAL 11892 Open Letter A [B?]) is laid in. A wonderful association copy. (#164561)
Seller: Currey, L.W. Inc. ABAA/ILAB, Elizabethtown, NY, U.S.A.