"My cause is the Cause of a man who has never yet
been defeated, and whose whole being is one all devouring,
God-given holy purpose", declared Upton Beall Sinclair. This
man is not only an American novelist, essayist, journalist, but
also deeply involved in politics. He has accomplished so
many things throughout his life span, it is tough to compare
him to anyone else. Until Sinclair was in his later life, he
was an unknown failure to many, but then for forty years
after that, he was America's most important writer.
Sinclair was born in Baltimore on the 20th of
September in 1878. He was born in near poverty conditions
to his dysfunctional family consisting of his father who
drank himself to death, and his mother a southern aristocrat.
He taught himself to read and write by the time he was
five years old. By the time he was 14, he had already
graduated the City College of New York. He furthered his
education by becoming a special student at Columbia
University. He was supporting himself and paying his own
way through his education by writing and selling book. While
at Columbia University he was inspired by another student
to write even more novels. He started writing weekly novels
consisting of more than 30,000 words and selling them as
"half-dime novels". With the frustration of trying to make it
on such little profit, he left Columbia University.
Once Sinclair left, he started his first real novel entitled
Springtime and Harvest. Publishers did not see his point to
the novel, so they figured no one else would and with much
disappointment, turned down the novel. "In order to
succeed, one must fail at least once" was often a quote
used by Sinclair. He followed this quote often due to the
next couple of novels he wrote. Within the two years, he
wrote four long novels, and all were reviewed negatively
...