The Devil in the White City (Magill’s Literary Annual 2004)
At a glance:
- Author: Erik Larson
- First Published: 2003
- Type of Work: History
- Time of Work: 1890-1912
- Setting: Principally Chicago; also New York, New England, Philadelphia, Cincinnati, and other places
- Principal Characters: Daniel Hudson Burnham, Henry H. Holmes, Frank Geyer, Charles McKim, Francis Millet, Frederick Law Olmsted, John Wellborn Root, Louis Henry Sullivan
- Genres: Nonfiction, History
- Subjects: New York, Murder or homicide, Twentieth century, Nineteenth century, New York City, Midwest, Ohio, 1910’s, Chicago, New England, Pennsylvania, Sisters, Philadelphia, Fairs, Illinois, Architecture or architects, Mass murderers or serial killers, 1900’s
- Locales: New York, Chicago, IL, Philadelphia, PA, Cincinnati, OH, New England
In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson tells the story of two men, an architect and a serial killer, operating in Chicago during the 1890’s. As he did in Isaac’s Storm (1999), Larson takes a notorious but largely forgotten nineteenth century event and gives a broad understanding of it by focusing tightly on a few individuals. Here, he helps readers make sense of what was new about big cities at the end of the nineteenth century—transportation, communication, electricity, anonymity—by showing how these aspects of the Gilded Age helped Daniel Burnham create a...
[The entire page is 1665 words long]
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