Upton Sinclair author page

Upton Sinclair biography

Upton Sinclair (1878–1968) was an American novelist, journalist and political activist. He was born on 20 September 1878 in Baltimore, Maryland.

He studied at the City College of New York and later at Columbia University. During his studies he supported himself by writing pulp fiction stories.

Sinclair gained international fame with his novel The Jungle (1906), which exposed conditions in the American meatpacking industry. The book contributed to public pressure for the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in 1906.

He wrote nearly 100 books across his career, covering social justice, industry, politics and history. His Lanny Budd series of historical novels, published between 1940 and 1953, traced world events from the First World War through the early Cold War. The third book in the series, Dragon’s Teeth (1942), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1943.

Sinclair was active in politics as a socialist and ran unsuccessfully for public office several times, including the governorship of California in 1934 on the “End Poverty in California” platform.

He died on 25 November 1968 in Bound Brook, New Jersey.