The Brass Check: A Study of American Journalism is the classic expose of media coverups. So TeleRead is reproducing nine chapters of Upton Sinclair’s book–perhaps the first time that so much of it has appeared on the Web. The rest of the free text will follow via our efforts for Project Gutenberg; you can e-mail us if you want to be notified when that happens. Meanwhile, for proofing help, we’re grateful to Betsy Connor Bowen, a TeleRead volunteer, writer and ex-English teacher.
Please note that TeleRead is an e-library advocacy group, not a publisher, but this is one book we felt had to go online.
Upton Sinclair surely would have approved. The original hardback and paperback editions of The Brass Check even appeared without a copyright notice since Sinclair wanted to reach as many readers as possible. Would that he have been alive in the era of the Web.
In its time The Brass Check was a best-seller–self-published, surprise of surprise–but it eventually faded into oblivion. Simply put, this is a impressive case history for using technology to help reform our publishing and library systems by increasing the diversity of material available to rich and poor alike.
Meanwhile check out an essay from Robert McChesney and Ben Scott. It’s an adaptation of their introduction to forthcoming reprints of The Brass Check in paperback and hardback from the University of Illinois Press.
very good book!