The Jungle

 Everyone literate knows something about Upton Sinclairs' The Jungle. Maybe it's the tainted meat, or the poor working conditions, immigration or maybe even the socialism.  the book was first printed as a newspaper serial in the Appeal to Reason starting in February of 1905.  The book is in the public domain. You can download a copy at Gutenberg.org here, or as scans of the original newspaper serial courtesy of the NYU library here. The book has been continually in print for more than a century. Seesharp press recently printed a complete edition of the serial version. More here. (This got a bit of mixed press.) But the editions are substantially different and if your inner Lit professor is interested, it's probably worthwhile.

But in all of this historical hullabaloo it's been forgotten that Upton Sinclair was actually quite a good writer. I was reminded of this while flipping thorough a copy of the 1986 Penguin edition with yellow cracked pages.Allow me to quote:

"His notes are never true, and his fiddle buzzes on the low ones and squeaks and scratches on the high; but these things they heed no more than they heed the dirt and noise and squalor about them— it is out of this material that they have to build their lives, with it they have to utter their souls. And this is their utterance; merry and boisterous, or mournful and wailing, or passionate and rebellious, this is music is their music, music of home. It stretches out it's arms to them, they have only to give themselves up."