NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death. “Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel .... It doesn’t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.” —The New York Times Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake. The Devil in the White City draws the reader into the enchantment of the Guilded Age, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.
thatwordnerd: Both books tell a true story, with a multitude of sources, but are written in a way that makes the reader feel as if it is almost fiction. The reader (see more) is not hit over the head with facts and is able to get sucked into the story and the era.
BookshelfMonstrosity: Offering rich details of Savannah in the 1980s (Midnight in the Garden) and Chicago in the 1890s (Devil in the White City), these well-researched and dramatic recreations of terrible crimes are equally compelling, despite differences in time period and location.… (más)
CarlT: Though AMERICAN GOTHIC is fiction and THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY is non-fiction, both books are based on the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 (nicknamed "The White City") and the horrific murders committed by serial killer Henry H. Holmes.
Stbalbach: Both concern late-19th C American killers in the backdrop of a bigger social story of advancement (Chicago Fair and Oxford English Dictionary).
BookshelfMonstrosity: The Devil In the White City and The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher are compelling and richly detailed books about historical true crime. These stories present not only details about the crime but also about the social mores of the time.
It was a fantastic Chicago history book and I timed it perfectly for our visit to Chicago: I finished it somewhere on the interstate in Indiana (my husband was driving).
It's so well-researched it's amazing. There is a lot of material on Daniel Burnham. H. H. Holmes is a bit more trickier - though there's also plenty of material but a lot of it is unreliable. I think Erik Larson did a great job filling in the gaps and making educated guesses.
The book centers around the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, which I don't think I had even heard about before learning about this book. Chicago was mostly wooden buildings before the great fire of 1871 when about one third of them were burnt. The Chicago we know now started to be built and planned after the fire and the Exposition and Daniel Burnham played a big role in it. I also didn't know that the Ferris wheel was invented for the Exposition.
I visited the Rookery Building where Burnham's and Root's office was on the top floor and where the great architects of the Exposition convened. It's really beautiful. And so is Chicago, as Burnham envisioned:
"You'll see it lovely. I never will. But it WILL be lovely." ( )
I knew of H. H. Holmes already from documentaries and podcasts, but this couches that horror in a broader context of the Chicago World's Fair and the cultural climate at the time. Be warned that Holmes is not the main focus if that's the hook for you, but rather the Fair is the foundation of this book. Larson unfolds these events with fastidious detail, wry humor and subtle yet affecting expressiveness. I was left at the end with a sense of wonder and sadness which I think is quite the feat. ( )
This is a really well-told history of the lives of two men during the Industrial Revolution and the construction of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (the Columbian Exposition). Both visionaries of their own time: I wouldn't say one good and one evil, but a stark representation of just how impressive a time it was. On one side there is Daniel Burnham, the lead architect and operational manager of the World's Fair, who sacrificed his own (and others') blood, sweat, and tears to direct the construction of one of the greatest exhibitions ever seen. On the other side, H.H. Holmes, a cruel and chilling psychopathic murderer who cut out his own infamy in the White City. ( )
Mr. Larson has written a dynamic, enveloping book filled with haunting, closely annotated information. And it doesn't hurt that this truth really is stranger than fiction.
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood. Daniel H. Burnham
Director of Works
World's Columbian Exposition, 1893
I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing. Dr. H. H. Holmes
"Suddenly New York and St. Louis wanted the fair. Washington laid claim to the honor on the grounds it was the center of government, New York because it was the center of everything. No one cared what St. Louis thought, although the city got a wink for pluck."
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood"
"They are blue. Great murderers, like great men in other walks of activity, have blue eyes."
"In all the workforce in the park numbered four thousand. The ranks included a carpenter and furniture-maker named Elias Disney, who in coming years would tell many stories about the construction of this magical realm beside the lake. His son Walt would take note."
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death. “Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel .... It doesn’t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.” —The New York Times Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium. Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake. The Devil in the White City draws the reader into the enchantment of the Guilded Age, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.
It's so well-researched it's amazing. There is a lot of material on Daniel Burnham. H. H. Holmes is a bit more trickier - though there's also plenty of material but a lot of it is unreliable. I think Erik Larson did a great job filling in the gaps and making educated guesses.
The book centers around the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, which I don't think I had even heard about before learning about this book. Chicago was mostly wooden buildings before the great fire of 1871 when about one third of them were burnt. The Chicago we know now started to be built and planned after the fire and the Exposition and Daniel Burnham played a big role in it. I also didn't know that the Ferris wheel was invented for the Exposition.
I visited the Rookery Building where Burnham's and Root's office was on the top floor and where the great architects of the Exposition convened. It's really beautiful. And so is Chicago, as Burnham envisioned:
"You'll see it lovely. I never will. But it WILL be lovely." ( )