Erik Larson

The Devil in the White City by: Erik Larson Crown Publishing Group, 2003, and 447 The book "The Devil in the White City" is about the serial killer H.H. Holmes and the architect of the World's Fair Daniel H. Burnham. Who was Daniel H. Burnham? Burnham was a man who rose to prominence. In 1893 Chicago won the bid for the World's Exposition. The architects chosen were Burnham and his partner John Root, Burnham and John needed to build something to give their city a better reputation. Burnham ended facing many hardships along the way, it started when his partner John Root passed away due to Pneumonia when he was 41 years old. Now that Burnham was facing this alone he is facing, even more, problems, after he convinced the top 5 architects in the country their building designs were late, so there was fear of not finishing the buildings on time for the fair. There was fear of another cholera outbreak when the fair comes, there were protests when a company employed by the exposition to dig a drainage ditch hires Italian immigrants, and another problem Burnham faces is the limit of how much he can put on the soil, all of the buildings cleared the test but the heaviest and largest building. Burnham fears the potential of crime so he assigns a special police force for the fair's duration. The economy is slipping and now Burnham has to make cuts and even fire some of his workers. Burnham makes a speech to engineers hoping…

Erik Larson, the author of The Devil in the White City, was born on January 3, 1954 in Brooklyn, New York. He studied Russian history at the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated at the top of his class. One year later, Larson enrolled at another Ivy League School, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, where he graduated in 1978. After starting his career as a journalist for The Bucks County Courier Times in Pennsylvania, he worked for The Wall Street Journal, Time…

I did some background information on Erik Larson, who also had written for the Harper’s, The New Yorker, and the Atlantic Monthly, had also contribute to Time magazine, and the Wall Street Journal as well. I believe that Erik Larson is trying to arguing in The Devil in the White City that the city (Chicago) is hiding it ugly side by covering it up with the World’s Fair which is also known as the World’s Columbian Exposition. The World Fair intended purpose was to bring the wonderful things…

Erik Larson is argued to have a difficult time creating realistic details for a book about a time period he could only research about. In The Devil in the White City, Erik Larson uses brilliantly constructed figurative language in order to insightfully display his interpretation of the story (entailing the events of the Chicago World Fair and the serial killer H. H. Holmes) and realistically and informatively describe the details of people, places, and events in the novel. The first figurative…

Erick Larson’s The Devil in the White City traces the period of chaos that took place in building the World’s Fair and the moment of pride that followed. Published in 2003 in New York, this book also displays the evil that worked behind all of the effort to expose America’s architecture to the world. In his book, Larson demonstrates America’s strive and desire to successfully host the 1893 World’s Fair. Larson tries to illustrate America’s stamina and endurance despite all of the troubles that…

inspiration to sing” (Larson 109.) In the book, The Devil in the White City, Burnham, an architect, is having many different struggles in building the World’s Fair by opening day, but after the many struggles he ends up making the fair a dreamland. At the same time, Holmes, the first serial killer, is luring young women into his hotel and killing them without getting caught; however, when he does eventually get caught he considers himself with having the devil inside of him. In The Devil in the…

The Devil In The White City Essay #1 The majority of people will realize this book is different after just reading the first two chapters of The Devil in The White City. Rather you find out the book is being told from two stories being jumped back in forth between two totally different men in chicago during the world fair, or the interruptions of flashbacks, and little details you come across from Erik Larson's own research. This sounding like chaos Larson still has his book set up with a…

In The Devil in the White City, a novel published in the year 2003, Erik Larson describes the greatness of both the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 and one of America’s first serial killers, H.H. Holmes. In the novel, Larson uses juxtaposition, imagery, and repetition to emphasize the characteristics of good and evil for the reader. In his implementations of juxtaposition, Larson directly contrasts the characteristics of opposing elements. In his contrast between “the moral” and “the…

beginning as well, the readers are informed about H. H. Holmes, the serial killer who resided at the Fair’s doorstep. Since the killer’s identity is already spoiled for the audience, Erik Larson is forced to resort to other means of captivating his readers and holding them in suspense. Throughout Larson’s novel, he uses simple literary tactics to achieve his goals. While detailing the architects’ journeys to building the Fair, Larson uses less suspense in the beginning, as nothing is in need…

“Isaac’s Storm”, by Erik Larson, is a non-fiction historical narrative about the 1900 Galveston, Texas hurricane, “the most lethal hurricane this country has ever known. So far.” (www.washingtonpost.com) 1 In the book, Larson tells the story of Isaac Cline, the chief weather observer assigned to the Galveston, Texas weather station from 1891 to 1901. Mr. Larson, is a former “staff writer for The Wall Street Journal, and later a contributing writer for Time Magazine [who] has written articles…