The Devil in the White City
Author(s): Erik Larson
"The Chicago World's Fair of 1893 and its amazing 'White City' was one of the most spectacular the world has ever seen. This is the incredible story of its realization, and of the two men whose fates it linked, and architect and a serial killer. The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the chief builder of the White City, who created a magical landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals and gardens. The killer was H.H. Holmes, a handsome young doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair - and his own devilish charms - to lure scores a young women to their death. Holmes would stroll through the fair at night, when an electric dynamo transformed it into an incandescent fairyland, with his unsuspecting victims on either arm. hile Burnham overcome politics, personality clashes and the fatal Chicago winds to bring together the creative talents of his architectural team in the transformation of swampy Jackson Park into the White City, Holmes was busy constructing his own edifice just west of the fairgrounds. He called it the World's Fair Hotel and designed it to be a torture palace, complete with gas chamber and crematorium. Burnham, Holmes, an
Product Information
"Engrossing . . . exceedingly well documented . . . utterly fascinating." --"Chicago Tribune
""A dynamic, enveloping book. . . . Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramtic effect of a novel. . . . It doesn't hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction."" --The New York Times
""So good, you find yourself asking how you could not know this already." --"Esquire
""Another successful exploration of American history. . . . Larson skillfully balances the grisly details with the far-reaching implications of the World's Fair."--"USA Today
""As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find."--"San Francisco Chronicle
""Paints a dazzling picture of the Gilded Age and prefigure the American century to come."--"Entertainment Weekly
""A wonderfully unexpected book. . . Larson is a historian . . . with a novelist's soul."--"Chicago Sun-Times
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ERIK LARSON is the author of four national bestsellers: "In the Garden of Beasts," "Thunderstruck," "The Devil in the White City," and "Isaac's Storm," which have collectively sold more than 5.5 million copies. His magazine stories have appeared in "The New Yorker," "The Atlantic Monthly," "Harper's" and other publications and his books have been published in fourteen countries.
General Fields
- :
- : Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
- : Vintage
- : 0.433634
- : November 2003
- : 201mm X 130mm X 25mm
- : United States
- : books
Special Fields
- : Erik Larson
- : Paperback
- : 204
- : English
- : 364.1523092
- : very good
- : 464
- : illustrations
