The Pit

The Pit: A Story of Chicago is a 1903 novel by Frank Norris. It was the second novel in Norris's proposed trilogy called "The Epic of the Wheat." In this "story of Chicago," Norris moves from the production of wheat to its distribution on world markets, from the natural countryside of California to the artificial terrain of futures speculation. Continuing his portrayal of the effects of temptation and greed, Norris also depicts the decline evident in the space of only one generation-from the moral generation of elders who made their money through honest labor to their degenerate offspring who labor only after money and the power it bestows.