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The
Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the
Fair That Changed America by Erik
Larson
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- Hardcover: 304 pages ;
Dimensions (in inches): 1.50 x 9.50 x 6.50
- Publisher: Crown Pub; ; 1st
edition (February 11, 2003)
- ISBN: 0609608444
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Book
Description
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. In this book the smoke, romance, and
mystery of the Gilded Age come alive as never before.
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.
Author Erik
Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893
Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find
themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that The
Devil in the White City is not, in fact, a highly
imaginative novel.
Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the
architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H.
Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming
doctor.
Burnham's
challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was
forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other
obstacles to construct the famous "White City"
around which the fair was built.
His efforts
to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success,
are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by
such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and
Thomas Edison.
The
activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be
responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair,
are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's
Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near
the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own
charismatic personality to lure victims.
Combining
the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly
in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it
works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of
19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's
skillful writing. --John Moe
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