Jack London (1876–1916) was an American novelist, journalist and social activist. Pioneering the genre of magazine fiction and prototyping science fiction, he became one of the first writers, who gained worldwide fame and a large fortune. The book «The People of the Abyss» is a conclusion to the results of a journalistic investigation conducted by Jack London in the capital of the British Empire. In the summer of 1902, he voluntarily descended to the «bottom of London.» As the urban proletarian, he lived and worked for some time in the blocks of the East End to see with his\nown eyes the degree of hardship and daily dangers experienced by the social lower classes in the capital of the most powerful country in the world.