The Devil in The White City, published by Erik Larson in 2003, is a factual account of incidents that occurred in Chicago at the end of the 19th century. Larson weaves the story of the Chicago World’s Fair overseer, Daniel Burnham, and his planning and execution of the event, with that of a cunning serial killer who preyed on young women during the same timeframe. The book is both an historical account of a series of events and a philosophical journey in search of answers to the question of why, when life is so short, do some people choose to fill their limited time here doing good whilst others choose to walk the path of evil. It is both gruesome crime thriller and sociological document that constantly contrasts good and evil, dark and light, and shows the vibrant city of Chicago as both the White City of good and promise and the Dark City where evil exists in the shadows.
Larson had come across the story of Dr. H.H. Holmes years before he’d started writing Devil but, though intrigued, dismissed him as a “slasher” (Larson’s word) and moved on. However, as Bookpage explains, “according to Larson, even while working on Isaac's Storm he continued to be tantalized not so much by Holmes himself but by the fact that Holmes lured young women to their deaths at his macabre World's Fair Hotel almost under the very lights of this great international attraction. 'Interestingly,' Larson says, 'other people have written about Holmes but, to my surprise, the fair has always been almost parenthetical. And I kept thinking, here's this marvelous magical fair and as counterpoint to that was this dark, dark creature sort of feeding off the fair. I couldn't really tell one story without telling the other.’ He decided to tell both.” Continuing on that note, in an interview with Identity Theory Larson explained, “I didn’t know the details [about the Fair]. Then I started reading about that World’s Fair. And that’s when I got hooked and realized, ‘Wait a minute. Here was this monumental act of civic good will.’ It really was. This massive act of civic good will and literally in the same place, at the same time, was the opposite, this dark, dark character. And that’s what lured me. This idea that the two things happening at once—dark and light, yin and yang, however you want to look at it. And, in fact, I would not have been interested in just doing a book about the Fair. Nor would I have been interested in doing a book just about Holmes. But together they made a sort of unity. That I found kind of magical.” Reviews were mostly enthusiastic. The Chicago Tribune enthused that the work was “A hugely engrossing chronicle of events public and private. Exceedingly well-documented, exhaustive without being excessive, and utterly fascinating. Its joined tales of an urban utopia with a sensational understory of the torture of innocents deserves to be hugely popular”; the New York Daily News called it “A great story, recounted with authority, entertainment, and insight . . . Larson writes with marvelous confidence, enthusiasm, polish, and scholarship”; and the New York Times said Larson “relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel. Mr. Larson has written a dynamic, enveloping book . . . It doesn’t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.”
The book garnered numerous acclamations and was a New York Times bestseller. Its awards include the 2003 International Horror Guild Award, the Washington State Book Award, the Edgar Award, and the Book Sense Book of the Year Honor Book. It was shortlisted for the National Book Award, was a finalist for the Great Lakes Book Award, and was an ALA Outstanding Book for the College-Bound.
Leonardo DiCaprio purchased the rights to the book for a film adaptation in 2010. In 2019 it was announced that DiCaprio and Martin Scorsese would be producing it as a limited series for Hulu.
