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.

この本で学べること

• 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.

どのような方におすすめですか？

現場の証言に基づく報道や社会史、現場に飛び込む作家にひかれる読者におすすめの本です。エドワード朝のロンドンや、ジャック・ロンドンの初期作品に関心のある方にも向いています。