The Octopus

The Octopus: A Story of California is a 1901 novel by an American novelist and journalist Frank Norris. It was the first part of an uncompleted trilogy, The Epic of the Wheat. It describes the conflicts between wheat growers and a railway company in California. Norris was inspired to write the novel by the famous Mussel Slough Tragedy involving the Southern Pacific Railroad. In the book, he depicts the transnational corporation ad the rancher league standing out to protect their lands.