The People of the Abyss (1903) is a book by Jack London about life in the East End of London in 1902. He wrote this first-hand account by living in the East End (including the Whitechapel District) for several months, sometimes staying in workhouses or sleeping on the streets. The conditions he experienced and wrote about were the same as those endured by an estimated 500,000 of the contemporary … contemporary London poor.
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Awareness of the Victorian era is widespread. It is an historic designation that goes beyond the boundaries of Queen Victoria’s empire. Victoria ascended the throne as a girl of just 18 and reigned for 63 years and seven months, longer than any of her predecessors.
Modern authors write historical fiction not only about Victorian England, but about Victorian San Francisco. Victorian New York and other places over which Victoria did not rule but where her influence meandered. While the death of the Queen, in 1901, more or less marked the end of that era, conditions do not immediately change with the ascension of the new monarch. Likewise, the sweeping domestic and international changes associated with this time period began sometime before she was crowned. Quite simply, one person may symbolize an era, but it is political and social temperature that brings about that notoriety.
Jack London was an American journalist, novelist, and social activist. THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS is a narrative of London’s East End specifically, and on a deeper level, a treatise on conditions in Great Britain as a whole. Poverty, or as London calls it, pauperism, is as rampant today as it was at the turn of the 20th century. It is terrifying to think that now, nearly 120 years later, people in first world countries are living hand to mouth just waiting for the thing to happen that will push them over into destitution. The thing, as explained by London, is inevitable. It might be illness or injury or simply being fired from one’s job. The only sure thing is that a thing will happen.
It is frightening to read about the truly horrifying conditions in London’s East End, in 1902 and find that where Jack London refers to the London Abyss you can easily substitute American Abyss. Although I have read a considerable number of accounts of the Jack the Ripper murders, that occurred in 1888, and have been horrified by the description of conditions then, THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS, written 14 years later, describes filthy living conditions and an appallingly short life expectancy in the most stark terms I have ever read. Many families who live in the slums of Whitechapel, Spitalfields, and the like are doomed to die out during the third generation.
Surprisingly, there was a Public Health Committee that investigated overcrowding in dwellings in London at the time this was written. The numbers cited throughout the book detail unimaginable unsanitary conditions and overcrowding along with innumerable people of all ages living on the street. While I was reading about these conditions, newspapers today were detailing the unsanitary conditions of caged human beings right here in the United States. It is a stark reminder of how far we have come juxtaposed with how easily we can slip backwards.
Although not a terribly long book, THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS is not an easy read. It is a piece of investigative journalism written in the vernacular of its day. Along with that, Jack London has attempted to convey, through misspellings, the accent of those with whom he talked. He also makes it quite clear, that he wanted to write this from personal experience, but he always had a safe haven to which he could escape. He also made legal preparations should he fall victim to illness or crime.
I am glad to have read THE PEOPLE OF THE ABYSS, but I can’t say I enjoyed reading it. I rather think it is immoral to enjoy a book that describes the horror that was the truth of human beings’ existence.