The Octopus: A Story of California - Softcover

Norris, Frank

3.82

1,893 ratings by Goodreads

9780140390407: The Octopus: A Story of California

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140390405 ISBN 13: 9780140390407

Publisher: Penguin Classics, 1986

View all copies of this ISBN edition:

Based on an actual bloody dispute between wheat farmers and the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1880, this novel depicts the dying days of the western frontier of America.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

Review:

This is a turn-of-the-century epic of California wheat farmers struggling against the rapacity of the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, which will stop at nothing to extend its domination. The company controls the local paper, the land, the legislature and, when the farmers organize to protect themselves, even manages to control their representative on the state rate-fixing commission. An unremitting tale of greed and betrayal, originally intended as one-third of Norris' never-completed "Epic of the Wheat" trilogy.

About the Author:

Frank Norris was an American author who wrote primarily in the naturalist genre, focusing on the impact of corruption and turn-of-the-century capitalism on common people. Best known for his novel McTeague and for the first two parts of his unfinished The Epic of the Wheat trilogyThe Octopus: A Story of California and The Pit, Norris wrote prolifically during his lifetime. Following his education at the Acad?mie Julian in Paris, University of California, Berkeley, and at Harvard University, Norris worked as a news correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, and covered the Spanish-American War in Cuba for McClure s Magazine. Norris died suddenly in 1902 of peritonitis, leaving The Wolf: A Story of Empire, the final part of his Wheat trilogy, incomplete.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.