The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America

Erik Larson

Feb 2004 · Sold by Vintage

About this eBook

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile comes 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. 

“As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find.” —San Francisco Chronicle

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.

Ratings and reviews

Too much White City, not enough Devil. Don't get me wrong, the story was interesting. But, I was expecting more about Holmes and less about Burnham. I wanted to read about America's first serial killer and less about the politics of designing the World's Fair. I probably should have checked out the kind of books the author writes instead of just reading the description. I was hoping for something more along the lines of Caleb Carr's The Alienist. Instead it was more like a history book of Chicago politics and architecture. Holmes is a very interesting character, and a very disturbing one. He is the embodiment of evil, someone who tortures and kills for pleasure. He is the poster child for why people need to know how to defend themselves. He is the personification of why the whole Social Justice Warrior cry of 'teach men not to rape' is so absurd; nearly EVERYONE understands that certain acts are abhorrent, yet a very small number will commit them anyway because they derive satisfaction from it. Defending yourself against such people requires more than just saying 'no'. The eBook was formatted well with no obvious spelling or grammatical errors.

Wow, just wow, what a great read, not what I expected, but I thank my friend for recommending. Definitely has opened up my mind to other types of books, even if they are non-fiction. a must-read, especially if you want to know more about the most dangerous man in the world... at the time.

I'm a voracious reader with a high tolerance for slow, dry books, but I could not get through this one. The two main threads had little to do with one another, apart from the time period in which they occurred, and there was not enough juiciness or life in either thread. The book didn't transport me to this era in any way. Very dull.

About the author

Erik Larson is the author of six national bestsellers—The Splendid and the Vile, Dead Wake, In the Garden of Beasts, Thunderstruck, The Devil in the White City, and Isaac’s Storm—which have collectively sold more than ten million copies. His books have been published in nearly twenty countries.