BookPal

Home > History >   The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (Paperback) [Bulk]
Alternative Views:	Bulk Discounts Buy... Save... Price... 25 - 99 30% $10.47 100 - 249 38% Click for Price 250 - 499 40% Click for Price 500 - 999 43% Click for Price 1000+ Please Call Less than 25 order from amazon.com Bulk discount orders are non-returnable Read our Price Match Policy List Price: $14.95 Our Price: $10.47 for 25 - 99 copies You save $4.48! Published: 2/10/04 ISBN: 0375725601, 9780375725609 Format Paperback Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group Carton Quantity: 24 (Minimum order):  25 Product Code: 9780375725609 Buy It New: Bulk savings applied automatically at checkout. Orders typically ship in 1 to 4 business days, subject to inventory on hand and quantity ordered. Please call us if you have any questions or special needs. Qty:

Description Excerpts   From Publishers Weekly Not long after Jack the Ripper haunted the ill-lit streets of 1888 London, H.H. Holmes (born Herman Webster Mudgett) dispatched somewhere between 27 and 200 people, mostly single young women, in the churning new metropolis of Chicago; many of the murders occurred during (and exploited) the city's finest moment, the World's Fair of 1893. Larson's breathtaking new history is a novelistic yet wholly factual account of the fair and the mass murderer who lurked within it. Bestselling author Larson (Isaac's Storm) strikes a fine balance between the planning and execution of the vast fair and Holmes's relentless, ghastly activities. The passages about Holmes are compelling and aptly claustrophobic; readers will be glad for the frequent escapes to the relative sanity of Holmes's co-star, architect and fair overseer Daniel Hudson Burnham, who managed the thousands of workers and engineers who pulled the sprawling fair together 0n an astonishingly tight two-year schedule. A natural charlatan, Holmes exploited the inability of authorities to coordinate, creating a small commercial empire entirely on unpaid debts and constructing a personal cadaver-disposal system. This is, in effect, the nonfiction Alienist, or a sort of companion, which might be called Homicide, to Emile Durkheim's Suicide. However, rather than anomie, Larson is most interested in industriousness and the new opportunities for mayhem afforded by the advent of widespread public anonymity. This book is everything popular history should be, meticulously recreating a rich, pre-automobile America on the cusp of modernity, in which the sale of "articulated" corpses was a semi-respectable trade and serial killers could go well-nigh unnoticed. 6 b&w photos, 1 map. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist *Starred Review* Larson's ambitious, engrossing tale of the Chicago World's Fair of 1893 focuses primarily on two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect who was the driving force behind the fair, and Henry H. Holmes, a sadistic serial killer working under the cover of the busy fair. After the 1889 French Exposition Universel wowed the world with the Eiffel Tower and high attendance numbers, interest began to grow in the U.S. for a similar fair. Chicago and New York were the top contenders for the location, and in February 1890, Chicagoans were overjoyed to hear they had won the honor. Burnham and his partner, John Root, the leading architects in Chicago, were tapped for the job, and they in turn called on Frederick Law Olmstead, Louis Sullivan, and Richard M. Hunt to help them build the world's greatest fair. They faced overwhelming obstacles: inhospitable weather, bureaucracy, illness, and even death. Unbeknownst to any of them, Holmes, a charismatic, handsome doctor, had arrived in the city and built a complex with apartments, a drugstore, and a vault, which he used to trap his victims until they suffocated. When the White City opened for business in May 1893, hundreds of thousands of people flocked to it, although a plummeting economy and several accidents did nothing to help business. A shocking murder concludes the ultimately successful fair, and that's before Holmes claims his final victims in the cruelest act of his career. A magnificent book. Kristine Huntley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Review “Engrossing . . . exceedingly well documented . . . utterly fascinating.” —Chicago Tribune “A dynamic, enveloping book. . . . Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramtic effect of a novel. . . . It doesn’t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.” --The New York Times "So good, you find yourself asking how you could not know this already." —Esquire “Another successful exploration of American history. . . . Larson skillfully balances the grisly details with the far-reaching implications of the World’s Fair.”—USA Today “As absorbing a piece of popular history as one will ever hope to find.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Paints a dazzling picture of the Gilded Age and prefigure the American century to come.”—Entertainment Weekly “A wonderfully unexpected book. . . Larson is a historian . . . with a novelist’s soul.”—Chicago Sun-Times Product Description Bringing Chicago circa 1893 to vivid life, Erik Larson's spellbinding bestseller intertwines the true tale of two men--the brilliant architect behind the legendary 1893 World's Fair, striving to secure America’s place in the world; and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. 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. From the Inside Flap Bringing Chicago circa 1893 to vivid life, Erik Larson's spellbinding bestseller intertwines the true tale of two men--the brilliant architect behind the legendary 1893 World's Fair, striving to secure America?s place in the world; and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. 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. About the Author Erik Larson, author of the international bestseller Isaac’s Storm, has written for Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, and Time, where he is a contributing writer. He is a former staff writer for The Wall Street Journal. He lives in Seattle with his wife, three daughters, and assorted pets, including a golden retriever named Molly.   Related Products... Panzer Operations: The Eastern Front Memoir Of Ge Halfbreed: The Remarkable True Story Of George Be The Brenner Assignment: The Untold Story of the M Gray Cavalier: The Life And Wars Of General W.h.f Our Price: $21.00 for 25 - 99 copies Add Our Price: $18.00 for 25 - 99 copies Add Our Price: $15.00 for 25 - 99 copies Add Our Price: $24.00 for 25 - 99 copies Add Hell Is Upon Us: D-Day in the Pacific--Saipan to Michelangelo in Ravensbruck: One Woman's War Agai Army of the Potomac, Volume II: McClellan Takes C The End of the Old Order: Napoleon and Europe, 18 Our Price: $16.50 for 25 - 99 copies Add Our Price: $15.60 for 25 - 99 copies Add Our Price: $27.00 for 25 - 99 copies Add Our Price: $24.00 for 25 - 99 copies Add

Share your knowledge of this product with other customers... Be the first to write a review

Browse for more products in the same category as this item: History Random House

	Nordie's at Noon: The Personal Stories of Four Women "Too Young" for Breast Cancer (Hardcover) $12.00 for 25 - 99 copies
	Onions: A Celebration Of The Onion Through Recipes, Lore, And History (Hardcover) $9.60 for 25 - 99 copies
	No Man's River: (Hardcover) $15.00 for 25 - 99 copies
	The Shadow of the Wind (Paperback) [Bulk] $11.20 for 25 - 99 copies
	The Love Dare (Paperback) Bulk] $8.99 for 25 - 999 copies
	Envy of the Gods: Alexander the Great's Ill-Fated Journey Across Asia (Hardcover) $15.60 for 25 - 99 copies
	Home Wine Cellar: (Hardcover) $21.00 for 25 - 99 copies
	Your Pregnancy After 35 $9.57 for 25 - 99 copies
	Born On A Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant (Paperback) $10.08 for 25 - 99 copies