
The Devil in the White City
Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
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Narrated by:
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Scott Brick
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By:
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Erik Larson
About this listen
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The true tale of the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago and the cunning serial killer who used the magic and majesty of the fair to lure his victims to their death.
Two men, each handsome and unusually adept at his chosen work, embodied an element of the great dynamic that characterized America’s rush toward the twentieth century. The architect was Daniel Hudson Burnham, the fair’s brilliant director of works and the builder of many of the country’s most important structures, including the Flatiron Building in New York and Union Station in Washington, D.C. The murderer was Henry H. Holmes, a young doctor who, in a malign parody of the White City, built his “World’s Fair Hotel” just west of the fairgrounds—a torture palace complete with dissection table, gas chamber, and 3,000-degree crematorium.
Burnham overcame tremendous obstacles and tragedies as he organized the talents of Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles McKim, Louis Sullivan, and others to transform swampy Jackson Park into the White City, while Holmes used the attraction of the great fair and his own satanic charms to lure scores of young women to their deaths. What makes the story all the more chilling is that Holmes really lived, walking the grounds of that dream city by the lake.
The Devil in the White City draws the reader into a time of magic and majesty, made all the more appealing by a supporting cast of real-life characters, including Buffalo Bill, Theodore Dreiser, Susan B. Anthony, Thomas Edison, Archduke Francis Ferdinand, and others. Erik Larson’s gifts as a storyteller are magnificently displayed in this rich narrative of the master builder, the killer, and the great fair that obsessed them both.
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Critic reviews
National Book Awards, Short-listed
Edgar Allan Poe Award Winner, Fact Crime, 2004
"Engrossing . . . exceedingly well documented . . . utterly fascinating.” —Chicago Tribune
“A dynamic, enveloping book. . . . Relentlessly fuses history and entertainment to give this nonfiction book the dramatic effect of a novel. . . . It doesn’t hurt that this truth is stranger than fiction.” —The New York Times
“A wonderfully unexpected book. . . Larson is a historian . . . with a novelist’s soul.” —Chicago Sun-Times
Featured Article: The Best Nonfiction Audiobooks to Jump into Right Now
The best nonfiction audiobooks take involved, often intimidating subjects and reinvigorate them with sharp narration so you can stay focused and on track. In this list, we’ll share our picks for some of the best nonfiction audio out there, encompassing a wide array of topics—from the entire history of humanity to astrophysics to the American prison system. Engage with some of the most fascinating, deeply human real-life stories our catalog has to offer.
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The Demon of Unrest
- A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Erik Larson
- Length: 17 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston Harbor: Fort Sumter.
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Vividly Told History of the Start of the Civil War
- By WLC on 05-01-24
By: Erik Larson
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Isaac's Storm
- A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Davidson
- Length: 8 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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At the dawn of the 20th century, a great confidence suffused America. Isaac Cline was one of the era's new men, a scientist who believed he knew all there was to know about the motion of clouds and the behavior of storms. The idea that a hurricane could damage the city of Galveston, Texas, where he was based, was to him preposterous, "an absurd delusion." It was 1900, a year when America felt bigger and stronger than ever before. Nothing in nature could hobble the gleaming city of Galveston, then a magical place that seemed destined to become the New York of the Gulf.
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Two versions on Audible
- By stephiemav42 on 03-10-21
By: Erik Larson
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The Wager
- A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Dion Graham, David Grann
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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On January 28, 1742, a ramshackle vessel of patched-together wood and cloth washed up on the coast of Brazil. Inside were thirty emaciated men, barely alive, and they had an extraordinary tale to tell. They were survivors of His Majesty’s Ship the Wager, a British vessel that had left England in 1740 on a secret mission during an imperial war with Spain. While the Wager had been chasing a Spanish treasure-filled galleon known as “the prize of all the oceans,” it had wrecked on a desolate island off the coast of Patagonia.
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Gasping for Air
- By Jean Engle on 04-19-23
By: David Grann
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Lethal Passage
- The Story of a Gun
- By: Erik Larson
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 9 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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This devastating book illuminates America's gun culture - its manufacturers, dealers, buffs, and propagandists - but also offers concrete solutions to our national epidemic of death by firearm. It begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, 16-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several hundred rounds of ammunition tucked in his backpack. By day's end, he had killed one teacher and severely wounded another.
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great reasoned book
- By Claire on 04-26-20
By: Erik Larson
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Killers of the Flower Moon
- The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
- By: David Grann
- Narrated by: Will Patton, Ann Marie Lee, Danny Campbell
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In the 1920s, the richest people per capita in the world were members of the Osage Nation in Oklahoma. After oil was discovered beneath their land, the Osage rode in chauffeured automobiles, built mansions, and sent their children to study in Europe.
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An outstanding story, highly recommended
- By S. Blakely on 06-22-17
By: David Grann
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H. H. Holmes
- The True History of the White City Devil
- By: Adam Selzer
- Narrated by: David Bendena
- Length: 17 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the first truly comprehensive book examining the life and career of the murderer who has become one of America's great supervillains. It reveals not only the true story but how the legend evolved, taking advantage of hundreds of primary sources that have never been examined before, including legal documents, letters, articles, and records that have been buried in archives for more than a century.
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The truth
- By Anna Fluellen on 09-08-17
By: Adam Selzer
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If You Tell
- A True Story of Murder, Family Secrets, and the Unbreakable Bond of Sisterhood
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Karen Peakes
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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After more than a decade, when sisters Nikki, Sami, and Tori Knotek hear the word mom, it claws like an eagle’s talons, triggering memories that have been their secret since childhood. Until now. For years, behind the closed doors of their farmhouse in Raymond, Washington, their sadistic mother, Shelly, subjected her girls to unimaginable abuse, degradation, torture, and psychic terrors. Through it all, Nikki, Sami, and Tori developed a defiant bond that made them far less vulnerable than Shelly imagined.
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Horribly Depressing, Detailed Description of Abuse
- By Andrea on 12-20-19
By: Gregg Olsen
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Mary Churchill’s War
- The Wartime Diaries of Churchill’s Youngest Daughter
- By: Mary Churchill, Emma Soames - editor, Erik Larson - introduction
- Narrated by: Beth Eyre, Emma Soames
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1939, seventeen-year-old Mary found herself in an extraordinary position at an extraordinary time: it was the outbreak of World War II and her father, Winston Churchill, had been appointed First Lord of the Admiralty; within months he would become prime minister. The young Mary Churchill was uniquely placed to observe this remarkable historical moment, and her diaries—most never published until now—provide an immediate view of the great events of the war, as well as intimate moments with her father. These diaries also capture what it was like to be a young woman during wartime.
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Love Mary Soames
- By Robert on 11-21-22
By: Mary Churchill, and others
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American Predator
- The Hunt for the Most Meticulous Serial Killer of the 21st Century
- By: Maureen Callahan
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The names of notorious serial killers are usually well-known; they echo in the news and in public consciousness. But most people have never heard of Israel Keyes, one of the most ambitious and terrifying serial killers in modern history American Predator is the ambitious culmination of years of interviews with key figures in law enforcement and in Keyes's life, and research uncovered from classified FBI files. Callahan takes us on a journey into the chilling, nightmarish mind of a relentless killer, and to the limitations of traditional law enforcement.
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Why you shouldn’t listen to Reviews
- By jofi00 on 10-23-19
By: Maureen Callahan
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Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
- By: John Berendt
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman, Will Damron, John Berendt
- Length: 15 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Shots rang out in Savannah's grandest mansion in the misty,early morning hours of May 2, 1981. Was it murder or self-defense? For nearly a decade, the shooting and its aftermath reverberated throughout this hauntingly beautiful city of moss-hung oaks and shaded squares. John Berendt's sharply observed, suspenseful, and witty narrative flows like a thoroughly engrossing novel, and yet it is a work of nonfiction.
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LOVED IT!!!
- By Heidi on 07-11-10
By: John Berendt
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The Madman's Hotel
- By: Niall Breslin
- Narrated by: Niall Breslin
- Length: 4 hrs and 4 mins
- Original Recording
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In the heart of the rolling green hills of Ireland a huge abandoned psychiatric asylum looms large and holds its secrets close, until one family fights to find the truth about their long lost great grandmother. Presented by Irish celebrity and mental health advocate Niall Breslin - this is the untold story of the quest to find patient Julia Leonard, alongside many others, who came to die in St Loman’s Hospital near Dublin. Why was Julia in St Loman’s? And what happened to her and other patients who found themselves within its walls?
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Heart felt Remembrance
- By RosaInGlousta on 11-05-24
By: Niall Breslin
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The Mother Next Door
- Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy
- By: Andrea Dunlop, Mike Weber
- Narrated by: Andrea Dunlop
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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No bond is more sacred than the one between a mother and child. And no figure is more sympathetic than a mother whose child faces a life-threatening illness. But what if the mother is the reason for the illness? What if the sympathy is the point? With help from some of the top MBP experts in the world, Dunlop and Weber uncover the complex maze of psychological, systemic, and cultural issues that compound MBP and offer solutions for how we might find our way out.
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Compelling handling of maternal abuse
- By Mother Of Hope on 04-30-25
By: Andrea Dunlop, and others
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Framed
- Astonishing True Stories of Wrongful Convictions
- By: John Grisham, Jim McCloskey
- Narrated by: Jim McCloskey, Michael Beck, John Grisham
- Length: 13 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In his first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, #1 bestselling author John Grisham and Centurion Ministries Founder Jim McCloskey share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. Impeccably researched and grippingly told, Framed offers an inside look at the injustice faced by the victims of the United States criminal justice system.
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Believable but unbelievable
- By kimberly on 10-20-24
By: John Grisham, and others
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In Cold Blood
- By: Truman Capote
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 14 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, four members of the Clutter family were savagely murdered by blasts from a shotgun held a few inches from their faces. There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues.
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Still the Best
- By Lisa on 01-10-06
By: Truman Capote
What listeners say about The Devil in the White City
Highly rated for:
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- ghorowitz3
- 03-06-15
Ruined again by Scott Brick
What made the experience of listening to The Devil in the White City the most enjoyable?
The story is irresistable, the writing is fine
What was the most compelling aspect of this narrative?
Any time Scott Brick stopped using his habitually snarky intonation -- which was rare
Would you be willing to try another one of Scott Brick’s performances?
In a Nelson DeMille or Lee Child book sure. In non-fiction, only because I have no choice
If you could give The Devil in the White City a new subtitle, what would it be?
The Devil who makes publishers continue to use Scott Brick for everything regardless of suitability
Any additional comments?
Have I made myself clear: Scott Brick has exactly one gear: snark overdrive. Fine when called for by the content, ridiculous for 90% of what he is currently used for.
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9 people found this helpful
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Overall
- George J. Vournazos
- 04-20-05
A Must For All Chicagoans!
This book was fascinating! As a life long resident of Chicago, I found this book to be a must read. It lead to a wealth of emotions from pride in the "Chicago spirit" which accomplished and continues to accomplish great things to the disgust at the lax manner in which human life was treated at that time. Contrary to what some reviewers wrote, I found the detail to paint a rich and deep picture of that time that reflected the spirit and mood of the Era, not only in Chicago, but the country as well. Highly recommended!
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7 people found this helpful
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Overall
- PaintPots
- 11-30-10
about The Devil... no gruesome recounting
I loved this book. The history of the Chicago World's Fair is fascinating - Larson brings it alive. I held back from listening to it for years as I was concerned about gory details of "the Devil" Mr. Holmes. No fears! Firstly, it is a small part of the book and secondly the author is not graphic about the murders except perhaps at one place. Interesting because Larson is beautifully descriptive about he architecture and the World's Fair experience.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Michelle
- 08-09-04
Fantastic read
The story is true and could just as well be written about the 1990's as the 1890's with its various threads touching upon images of unimaginable genius/technological growth and unspeakable evil sit set before a backdrop of roller coaster economic conditions. I cannot get the themes and parallels out of my mind.
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3 people found this helpful
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- mark o reilly
- 04-08-16
Beautifully paints an era in time
Just a warning, this is predominantly about the Chicago Worlds Fair and is fascinating in it's description of the historical context, people and events that surrounded it. People going in expecting a lot of macabre detail on HH Holmes may be put off by the amount of time spent discussing the logistics of architecture.
That shouldn't be seen as a negative though, it is a very well written book for a largely historical account and contains some very beautiful prose and structure, it feels as lovingly crafted as the worlds fair itself.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Jennifer Dickinson
- 03-16-15
Absorbing Listen
Would you listen to The Devil in the White City again? Why?
Yes, there is so much detail in the twin stories of how the fair was built and how HH Holmes used it as an opportunity to collect more victims. You couldn't possibly absorb it all in one listen. Scott Brick is an articulate, precise reader and I thought he handled the material perfectly.
Did the plot keep you on the edge of your seat? How?
Definitely. I knew almost nothing about the topic and had no expectations or ideas on how things would turn out. The story was perfectly told so as not to give any hints.
Have you listened to any of Scott Brick’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
I have not; not applicable.
What’s the most interesting tidbit you’ve picked up from this book?
This is when/how the Ferris Wheel was invented!
Any additional comments?
I am a bit of an armchair architecture nerd, so I loved having a look into how the fair was achieved (and nearly wasn't) as well as insight into the minds of the great men who built the fair.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Christina
- 09-27-04
Fantastic Read
The narrator is expressive - the story is compelling - and the writing grips you and keeps you there. I am LOVING this book.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Corinne
- 11-02-11
Intriguing
Great narration. Loved the concept of the story and extremely intriguing. Sometimes slow and encumbered with all of the architectural descriptions and jargon. Overall, it was definitely worth my time.
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall
- Jesse
- 05-13-06
A thriller and yet non-fiction
The 1893 Chicago World's Fair , the architect who built it and the serial killer who haunts it. Incredible journalistic writing; reads like a thriller, but chillingly, it is all fact.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
- Alison
- 02-22-05
Rivetting!
I chose this book because of recommendations on Audible even though I was somewhat taken aback by the subject matter -- architecture and World's Fairs can be kind of dry and serial killers are a bit too sensational for my usual reading tastes. I'm so glad I took a chance on it, though. It's a fascinating book about a fascinating time in American history. While the two lines of the story may seem unrelated, together they give a very provocative picture of late 19th century Chicago society. It's a long book, but I was really sorry when it ended. I wanted the story to go on.
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1 person found this helpful