Skip to content
Damaged Goods — cover
Get your copy
Aeneas Press edition 20th Century

Damaged Goods

The Great Play "Les Avariés" by Brieux, Novelized with the Approval of the Author

by Upton Sinclair 1878–1968

The book, and the century it came out of.

A young man of good family catches syphilis a month before his wedding, is told by a quack that he can marry safely, and does. Brieux’s play was banned in France and prosecuted in America; Sinclair novelised it in 1913 to get the argument past the censors, having already spent seven weeks undercover in the Chicago stockyards to write The Jungle. It is a public-health pamphlet with characters, and it worked. Illustrated with 50 full-page plates — paintings by Grandjean, Abel-Truchet and Carrier-Belleuse among them.

THE PRODUCTION OF EUGENE BRIEUX’S PLAY, “LES AVARIES,” OR, TO GIVE IT ITS ENGLISH TITLE, “DAMAGED GOODS,” HAS INITIATED A MOVEMENT IN THIS COUNTRY WHICH MUST BE REGARDED AS EPOCH-MAKING.—New York…
The first sentence of Damaged Goods
A note on this edition

Damaged Goods, by Upton Sinclair, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.

It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.

The edition
Format
Ebook
Extent
about 104 pages
Reading time
about 2 hours
Illustrations
Full-page plates, credited
Text
Complete, unabridged
Language
en
This edition
2026
ISBN
9785501922631
The plates

50 paintings are bound into this edition

Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.

La place Clichy, en 1896, Edmond Grandjean
La place Clichy, en 1896 Edmond Grandjean 1896
View of the Seine, looking toward Notre Dame, Henry Ossawa Tanner
View of the Seine, looking toward Notre Dame Henry Ossawa Tanner 1896
Combing the Hair, Edgar Degas
Combing the Hair Edgar Degas 1896
La Visite, Q123740
La Visite Q123740 1899
Église Notre Dame des Arts, Pont de l’Arche (View of the Nave Looking Towards the Choir), John Lavery
Église Notre Dame des Arts, Pont de l’Arche (View of the Nave Looking Towards the Choir) John Lavery 1897
Cotter Family on the Way Home, Marie Hauge
Cotter Family on the Way Home Marie Hauge 1896
The setting

A page from this edition

Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.

A page of Damaged Goods as set for this edition
The opening of a chapter
A page of Damaged Goods as set for this edition
A page where a plate falls

Both photographed from the finished volume.

Colophon

Damaged Goods, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Literary Classics shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.

Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501922631, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.

Before you buy

Questions readers ask

Is this the whole of Damaged Goods?
Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
What exactly did you change?
The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. Upton Sinclair's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
Are the pictures really in the book?
Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
How long is it?
About 104 pages, which is roughly about 2 hours of reading.
What do I actually get?
An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
If this one suits you
Damaged Goods
$4.99
Buy the ebook