> Skip to content
  • Published: 1 June 2004
  • ISBN: 9780553813531
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

The Devil In The White City




Chicago, 1893. One man built a heaven on earth. Another built hell beside it...

'An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction' TIME OUT

One was an architect. The other a serial killer. This is the incredible story of these two men and their realization of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893, and its amazing 'White City'; one of the wonders of the world.

The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the driving force behind the White City, the massive, visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals and gardens.

The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair - and his own devilish charms - to lure scores of young women to their deaths.

While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes and Chicago's infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earth, Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground. He called it the World's Fair Hotel.

In reality it was a torture palace, a gas chamber, a crematorium.

These two disparate but driven men are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America and set it on course for the twentieth century . . .

  • Published: 1 June 2004
  • ISBN: 9780553813531
  • Imprint: Bantam
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 496
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

About the author

Erik Larson

Erik Larson is the author of The Devil in the White City, Thunderstruck, Isaac’s Storm, and other works of nonfiction. He has written for a variety of national magazines and is a former staff writer for The Wall Street Journal and Time. He lives in Seattle with his wife, three daughters, and an old British sports car named Mrs Peel.

Also by Erik Larson

See all

Praise for The Devil In The White City

An irresistible page-turner that reads like the most compelling, sleep defying fiction

Time Out

A story that flits effortlessly between the infernal and the inspired

Word

Captures the spirit of an America bursting with pioneering drive...a gripping book

Independent on Sunday

Fuses history and entertainment to give the dramatic effect of a novel...this truth really is stranger than fiction

The New York Times

Bursting with so much vitality you half expect it to jump right out of your hands

Yorkshire Evening Post

Erik Larson tracks [H H Holmes] with practised journalistic skill...Highly readable

Sunday Telegraph