The People of the Abyss

The People of the Abyss by Jack London

Jack London takes a decision: In 1902, he goes to the east side of London, the capital of Great Britain, known as the Land of Never Set, and there, disguised as an ordinary poor person, he examines the conditions of the time.  The novel deals with the poverty and misery of the "people of the abyss", as he says, despite the luxurious life of the elite people of England.  The period described is the golden age of Great Britain, but utter misery reigns in the east end of London. The fact that Jack London describes these situations of the "people of the abyss" as one of them, living in them, is a source describing the real life conditions of the people in England at the time.  In his novel, which he sometimes enriched with court documents of the period, Jack London also presents the distorted proportion in the punishment of crimes against property and crimes against life with these documents.