The People of the Abyss is Jack London’s personal account of life in the slums of the East End district of London, circa 1900. A combination of undercover investigative reportage and sociological research, The People of the Abyss provides a classic picture of an environment notorious for its horrible living conditions. All of the horrors are there, described not by a dispassionate historian keeping a professional distance in his reporting, but in eyewitness accounts and interviews with people living in the most squalid and appalling conditions.

Disguised in filthy clothes, and living among them, the young writer graphically describes his first-hand experiences of the poverty of the inhabitants and his visits to the area's slums, workhouses, park benches, and pubs; and the idea of such horror even being possible at the height of England’s empire is pressed home by London until the reader can feel nothing but outrage. Through it all, The People of the Abyss provides one of the most fascinating studies of a true working journalist we're ever likely to come across.

JACK LONDON (1876-1916) was an activist, journalist, short-story writer, novelist, and one of the most widely translated of American authors.  London published over 50 books, and is most famous for The Sea Wolf, White Fang, The Call of the Wild, and The People of the Abyss.