The Devil in the White City: A Saga of Magic and Murder at the Fair that Changed America

The Devil in the White City tells the true story of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and a serial killer who exploited the fair to lure victims to their deaths. Two men shaped this narrative: Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair's director of works and architect of major American structures including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C., and Henry H. Holmes, a doctor who built the "World's Fair Hotel" near the fairgrounds—equipped with a dissection table, gas chamber, and crematorium. While Burnham organized architects including Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, and Louis Sullivan to transform Jackson Park into the White City, Holmes used the fair's appeal and his own charm to lure young women to their deaths. The narrative draws on meticulous research and incorporates real historical figures including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, and Archduke Francis Ferdinand. The account explores the contrast between Burnham's vision of the fair and Holmes's crimes, set against America's transition toward the twentieth century.