Q 01/05

Upton Sinclair said he aimed The Jungle at the public's heart and by accident hit it where?

A) In the head

B) In the stomach

C) In the liver

D) In the throat

Answer · why

B) In the stomach

"I aimed at the public's heart, and by accident I hit it in the stomach," he wrote in October 1906, annoyed that readers worried about their dinner ra...

Q 02/05

From which country, then part of the Russian Empire, do Jurgis Rudkus and his family emigrate to Chicago in The Jungle?

A) Lithuania

B) Poland

C) Hungary

D) Ukraine

Answer · why

A) Lithuania

Lithuania, which is why the novel's wedding feast follows old-country rules and the family is fleeced by a realtor who speaks their language fluently.

Q 03/05

How long did Upton Sinclair spend in disguise inside Chicago's packing plants before writing The Jungle?

A) Two weeks

B) Seven weeks

C) Four months

D) Two years

Answer · why

B) Seven weeks

Seven weeks in 1904, paid for by a socialist newspaper, was enough to fill a novel that later claimed roughly six months of total investigation.

Q 04/05

Which socialist weekly from Girard, Kansas, funded Sinclair's stockyards research and first ran The Jungle as a serial?

A) The Coming Nation

B) The Masses

C) Appeal to Reason

D) The Worker

Answer · why

C) Appeal to Reason

Appeal to Reason printed the novel in instalments from February to November 1905, a full year before any book edition existed.

Q 05/05

Which publisher finally issued The Jungle as a book in 1906, after five houses had rejected it as too shocking?

A) Macmillan

B) Doubleday

C) Scribner's

D) Harper

Answer · why

B) Doubleday

Doubleday, Page took it on just as Sinclair was about to print a cut-down subscriber edition himself; a Macmillan reader had called it "gloom and horr...