Author (non-fiction)

Journalist

Historian

Contributing writer for Wall Street Journal, TIME Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s

ERIK LARSON

AUTHOR’S NOTE

“In the following pages I tell the story of these men and this event, but I must insert here a notice: However strange

or macabre some of the following incidents may seem, this is not a work

of fiction” (Larson xi).

AUTHOR’S APOLOGY

“I beg forbearance, too, for the occasional side journey demanded by the story, including

excursions into the medical acquisition of corpses and the correct use of Black Prince

geraniums in an Olmstedian landscape”

(Larson xi).

W O R L D ’ S F A I R ( W O R L D ’ S C O L U M B I A N E X P O S I T I O N )

M A Y - O C T O B E R 1 8 9 3 C H I C A G O , I L L I N O I S

Daniel H. Burnham

“Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men’s

blood.”

“ I N T H E E N D I T I S A S T O R Y O F T H E I N E L U C T A B L E C O N F L I C T B E T W E E N G O O D A N D

E V I L , D AY L I G H T A N D D A R K N E S S ,

T H E W H I T E C I T Y A N D T H E B L A C K . ”

Dr. H.H. Holmes

“I was born with the devil in me. I could

not help the fact that I was a murderer, no more than the poet

can help the inspiration to sing.”