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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. ??Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel .... It doesn??t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.? ??The New York Times 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 g… (mer)
thatwordnerd: Both books tell a true story, with a multitude of sources, but are written in a way that makes the reader feel as if it is almost fiction. The reader (see more) is not hit over the head with facts and is able to get sucked into the story and the era.
BookshelfMonstrosity: Offering rich details of Savannah in the 1980s (Midnight in the Garden) and Chicago in the 1890s (Devil in the White City), these well-researched and dramatic recreations of terrible crimes are equally compelling, despite differences in time period and location.… (mer)
CarlT: Though AMERICAN GOTHIC is fiction and THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY is non-fiction, both books are based on the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 (nicknamed "The White City") and the horrific murders committed by serial killer Henry H. Holmes.
Stbalbach: Both concern late-19th C American killers in the backdrop of a bigger social story of advancement (Chicago Fair and Oxford English Dictionary).
BookshelfMonstrosity: The Devil In the White City and The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher are compelling and richly detailed books about historical true crime. These stories present not only details about the crime but also about the social mores of the time.
Honestly, I had seen this book hyped so much that I was really a little disappointed. I found it to be very dry at times and I'm not sure that incorporating the two storylines of the creation of the World's Fair in Chicago juxtaposed against the Holmes murders really worked all that well. Ironically, I found the fair more interesting that the salacious murders. ( )
This was good, although the reason it didn't get a 4-star rating was because it was anti-climatic. I would have liked to read a little more about the reactions of the families of all the girls they knew Holmes had killed, and/or read some of the letters written about missing family members who went to the World's Fair. There was no inclusion of Burnham's view of Holmes or any awareness of what went on during that time, though Larson alludes to the fact that Burnham did know or had occasion to comment on the murders. Larson is a great writer, but the end felt rushed--he could have left out several things that seemed to drag on about the fair and included more of Holmes' atrocities to make this an equal accounting. I thought, by the title, that the book would be more about Holmes than the Fair, but that is not the case at all. It was more about the Chicago World's Fair than anything else. ( )
Excellent NF about the 1892-3 Chicago Worlds Fair and a serial killer that did most of his gruesome business at the same time and in close proximity to the tair.
Like the black-and-white photos that bear images of the 1893 World's Fair, Eric Larson's account of the events leading up to, during, and after the fair stand in sharp contrast to each, and in an assortment of charcoals and grays. On one hand, garbed in the blackest of blacks, is a mass-murdering devil, and on the other, radiant in white, it the White City, which fleetingly existed between May 1 and October 30, 1893, which was brought into being by a cast of characters whose personalities, egos, talents, power, and vision came in a wide range of shades and sizes. Larson provides readers with just enough intimate detail from the lives of the men and women associated with the fair to balance the larger-than-life qualities of the event itself, which included an array of spectacles, including a ghastly fire and a tornado which, while leaving the Ferris wheel generally undisturbed, took out a good deal of glass, a roof, and the plumes on the birds at the Fair's ostrich farm.
My only criticism of the book would be that it should have included more photos, and a map of the fair grounds. In their absence, I supplemented my reading with the following Internet resources:
Mr. Larson has written a dynamic, enveloping book filled with haunting, closely annotated information. And it doesn't hurt that this truth really is stranger than fiction.
Information från den engelska sidan med allmänna fakta.Redigera om du vill anpassa till ditt språk.
Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood. Daniel H. Burnham
Director of Works
World's Columbian Exposition, 1893
I was born with the devil in me. I could not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing. Dr. H. H. Holmes
Confession
1896
Dedikation
Information från den engelska sidan med allmänna fakta.Redigera om du vill anpassa till ditt språk.
To Chris, Kristen, Lauren, and Erin,
for making it all worthwhile —and to Molly, whose lust for socks
kept us all on our toes
Inledande ord
Information från den engelska sidan med allmänna fakta.Redigera om du vill anpassa till ditt språk.
The date was April 14, 1912, a sinister day in maritime history, but of course the man in suite 63–65, shelter deck C, did not yet know it.
Citat
Information från den engelska sidan med allmänna fakta.Redigera om du vill anpassa till ditt språk.
"Suddenly New York and St. Louis wanted the fair. Washington laid claim to the honor on the grounds it was the center of government, New York because it was the center of everything. No one cared what St. Louis thought, although the city got a wink for pluck."
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood"
"They are blue. Great murderers, like great men in other walks of activity, have blue eyes."
"In all the workforce in the park numbered four thousand. The ranks included a carpenter and furniture-maker named Elias Disney, who in coming years would tell many stories about the construction of this magical realm beside the lake. His son Walt would take note."
Avslutande ord
Information från den engelska sidan med allmänna fakta.Redigera om du vill anpassa till ditt språk.
On a crystalline fall day you can almost hear the tinkle of fine crystal, the rustle of silk and wool, almost smell the expensive cigars.
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. ??Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel .... It doesn??t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.? ??The New York Times 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 g
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Google Books — Laddar...
History; Nonfiction; True Crime; Erik Larson; Daniel Stashower
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