"The Jungle's influence has been extraordinary for a literary work. Upton Sinclair's 1906 landmark novel is widely credited with awakening the public fury that led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act (1906), a watershed in consumer protection and government legislation. This story of the immigrant experience in the harrowing Chicago stockyards has drawn comment from historians, policymakers, and literary critics, and it is a widely assigned...

A down-and-out silver miner raising a son, self-made oilman Daniel Plainview has a voracious appetite for oil, and it turns him into a California tycoon in the early years of the 20th century. Getting the oil from the ground is an intensely physical process that later broadens into Plainview's equally indomitable urge to control land and power. Along the way, Plainview deals with a mighty derrick fire, a visit from a long-lost brother, the ongoing...