The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America (Unabridged)
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
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.
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 a time of magic and majesty, 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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
One of the greatest undertakings of the Gilded Age contrasts with a twisted man’s campaign of terror in this engrossing nonfiction audiobook by best-selling author Erik Larson. During the massively ambitious 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, a vicious serial killer known as H. H. Holmes saw the 27 million people who attended the six-month event as fodder for his brazen scheme of robbery and murder. We were blown away by how many historically significant developments sprang from this epic celebration—from Ferris wheels and electric dishwashers to the playground tune that starts “There’s a place in France...”—but we were even more shocked by Holmes’ outrageous villainy. Veteran narrator Scott Brick’s smooth, stately voice transports you right into the heart of the action. The Devil in the White City is as captivating as it is chilling.
Customer Reviews
Really enjoyed
A bit slow in the middle, but so comprehensive, and factual without being too dry!
Gripping truth stranger than fiction
Learned much about the history of Chicago, made by ordinary people with extraordinary ambition and determination.
Was excited… then not.
I thought this book might be a good read. Turns out, it’s just two subjects, that coincide. And strangely, are basically treated that way. No thread tying the subjects together other than time and place, with no effort to make either readable.