Upton Sinclair 
King Coal (Barnes & Noble Digital Library) 

Published in 1917, and based on the Colorado Coal Strikes of 1913-14, this novel is a scathing expose of the conditions in the coal mines of the western United States.  Wealthy Hal Warner comes to investigate the mines under an assumed name.  There he meets Mary Burke and finds himself falling in love with this young champion of worker’s rights, even though he must stay emotionally focused on the condition of the miners.

Circa l’autore

Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) is best remembered for The Jungle (1906), his fictionalized exposé of the unsanitary and unfair working conditions that characterized the U.S. meatpacking industry. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1943. A lifelong progressive, he ran for the governor of California in 1934.