This novel is the original and uncensored edition written approzimately in 1904. This cover was used in 1906 with the publication of the first commercial edition - less chapters and a less brutal description of both the working conditions and the production of miserable meat. As a muckraker, Upton Sinclair had no idea that this work of fiction would inlame the public and the politicians to the degree that it did. The story revolves around an immigrant worker and his family laboring in the slaughterhouses of Chicago and the iunhuman, slave like working conditions. It tells of the filthy and contaminated meat products produced in these disgusting factories. President Teddy Roosevelt read the book and immediately dispatched investigators to the heartland of America and as a result the Pure Food and Drug Act was enacted. This novel laid more groundwork for the continuing labor struggles of the turn-of-the-20th century.