7 h 5 minAudiobook14 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at cost
Audiobook edition · 7 h 5 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What does the richest city in the world look like when you have nowhere to sleep?
Jack London enters the poorest streets of London's East End in worn clothes, carrying almost no money. In The People of the Abyss, he shares the beds, meals and queues of people struggling to survive. His account brings hunger and homelessness close, in a city preparing to celebrate King Edward the Seventh's coronation.
Shelter costs money that casual work cannot always provide. People queue for charity bread or eat scraps from the pavement. Children grow up underfed in crowded rooms. London writes as a witness, with anger and strong opinions, asking why such misery exists amid wealth—and arguing that scarcity does not explain it.
What you’ll discover
- A witness among the poor Follow London into streets where he shares the daily struggle for food and shelter.
- The search for a bed Enter cheap lodging houses and see why finding shelter becomes an urgent task.
- Hunger without a cushion Face the bread queues and pavement scraps that give poverty its stark, concrete meaning.
- Work that wears people out Meet men hired by the day or hour, with no certainty of lasting work.
- An argument beyond scarcity Consider London's angry challenge to misery in a city surrounded by wealth and celebration.
Who will love it
Readers drawn to eyewitness reporting, social history, and writers who enter the scene will love this book. It also suits those fascinated by Edwardian London or Jack London's early work.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- Jack London buys rags and enters the East End
- Poverty presses the respectable ever further east
- The Abyss grinds down workers and their children
- Frying-Pan Alley shows a sweatshop and a festering garden
- The casual ward gives a bed only to the lucky
- A night walking and a morning at the Salvation Army
- Coronation Day and hop fields expose two Englands
- Dan Cullen, the wage table and the ghetto
- Inefficiency and chance feed the slaughterhouse below
- Drink, thrift and failed helpers lead to mismanagement
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Il popolo dell'abisso
by Jack London · 1903
Jack London trades his good suit for rags and spends the summer of 1902 among London's homeless.
Medium level2–5 hours to readItaliano
Learn a language with medium classicsSpagnoloFranceseTedescoItalianoGiapponesePortogheseIngleseAll 25 languages
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In short
What does it take to know how the poor of a great city really live? In the summer of 1902, the American writer Jack London decides the only way is to join them.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Jack London buys rags and enters the East End
In the summer of 1902, Jack London decides to see London's poor from the inside. He wants no police guide and no borrowed opinions. His friends tell him again and again that it cannot be done. He goes anyway.
At a secondhand shop he buys worn trousers, a frayed jacket, heavy shoes and a dirty cap. He sews a gold sovereign into his undershirt as an emergency fund. On the street the change is instant. Men who once called him sir now call him mate. A policeman asks whether he will walk or ride, and the value of his life seems to fall with the quality of his coat.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 14 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1903
- Language
- Italiano
- Reading time
- 4 h 35 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
London, Jack. The People of the Abyss. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-people-of-the-abyss.
London, J. (2026). The people of the abyss. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-people-of-the-abyss (Original work published 1903)
London, Jack. The People of the Abyss. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-people-of-the-abyss.
@book{london2026people,
author = {London, Jack},
title = {The People of the Abyss},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-people-of-the-abyss},
note = {First published 1903}
}
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What is The People of the Abyss about?
It is Jack London's account of living among London's poor in the summer of 1902. Dressed in rags, he sleeps in workhouses and on benches, picks hops, and records how wages, rents and chance push people downward.
Is The People of the Abyss a true story?
Yes, it is nonfiction. London lived in the East End in 1902 and published the book in 1903. He mixes his own scenes and conversations with statistics, police reports and quotations from other writers.
What does the Abyss mean in the title?
The Abyss is London's name for the bottom of society, where people without work, health or shelter end up. He pictures it as a pit or slaughterhouse that society itself keeps filling.
The author
Jack London
1876–1916 · American novelist and journalist
Jack London (1876–1916) was an American author, journalist and social activist. He was born in San Francisco and lived in California. He wrote novels, short stories and essays. His novels include The Call of the Wild (1903), The Sea-Wolf (1904), White Fang (1906) and Martin Eden (1909). He died in California.
More by Jack London
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