Erik Larson
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author. He has written Isaac's Storm (1999), about the experiences of Isaac Cline
Isaac Cline
Isaac Monroe Cline was the chief meteorologist at the Galveston, Texas office of the US Weather Bureau from 1889 to 1901. In that role, he became an integral figure in the devastating Galveston Hurricane of 1900....
during the Galveston Hurricane of 1900
Galveston Hurricane of 1900
The Hurricane of 1900 made landfall on the city of Galveston in the U.S. state of Texas, on September 8, 1900.It had estimated winds of at landfall, making it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale...
, The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
The Devil in the White City
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America is a 2003 non-fiction book by Erik Larson presented in a novelistic style. The book is based on real characters and events. Leonardo DiCaprio purchased the film rights in 2010.The book is set in Chicago circa...
(2003), about the 1893 Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and a series of murders by H. H. Holmes
H. H. Holmes
Herman Webster Mudgett , better known under the alias of Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, was one of the first documented American serial killers in the modern sense of the term...
that were committed in the city around the time of the Fair, and Thunderstruck, which intersperses the story of Hawley Harvey Crippen
Hawley Harvey Crippen
Hawley Harvey Crippen , usually known as Dr. Crippen, was an American homeopathic physician hanged in Pentonville Prison, London, on November 23, 1910, for the murder of his wife, Cora Henrietta Crippen...
with the story of Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi
Guglielmo Marconi was an Italian inventor, known as the father of long distance radio transmission and for his development of Marconi's law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often credited as the inventor of radio, and indeed he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand...
and the invention of radio. His most recent book, In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and An American Family in Hitler's Berlin, concerns William E. Dodd
William Dodd (ambassador)
William Edward Dodd was an American historian who served as the United States Ambassador to Germany from 1933 to 1937, during the Nazi era.-Early years and academic career:...
, the first American ambassador to Nazi Germany. The Devil in the White City won the 2004 Edgar Award
Edgar Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...
in the Best Fact Crime category.
He is a former features writer for The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal
The Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
and Time magazine, where he is still a contributing writer. His magazine stories have appeared in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic Monthly
The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...
, Harper's, and other publications. He is the author of two previous books, Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun (1994) and The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities (1992).
Larson grew up in Freeport
Freeport, New York
Freeport is a village in the town of Hempstead, Nassau County, New York, USA, on the South Shore of Long Island. The population was 42,860 at the 2010 census. A settlement since the 1640s, it was once an oystering community and later a resort popular with the New York City theater community...
, Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
. In the years since his departure from Long Island, he has lived in Bristol, Pennsylvania
Bristol, Pennsylvania
Bristol is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, northeast of Philadelphia opposite Burlington, N.J. on the Delaware River. Bristol was first incorporated in 1720. Although its charter was revised in 1905, the original charter remains in effect, making Bristol one of the older boroughs in...
, Philadelphia, San Francisco (twice), Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
(twice), and, finally, Seattle.
He studied Russian history at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
and graduated summa cum laude in 1976. After a year off, he attended the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is one of Columbia's graduate and professional schools. It offers three degree programs: Master of Science in journalism , Master of Arts in journalism and a Ph.D. in communications...
, graduating in 1978. His first newspaper job was with The Bucks County Courier Times in Levittown, Pennsylvania
Levittown, Pennsylvania
Levittown is a census-designated place and planned community in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, United States, within the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The population was 52,983 at the 2010 census. It is above sea level...
, where he wrote about murder, witches, environmental poisons, and other "equally pleasant" things.
Larson has taught non-fiction writing at San Francisco State, the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, and the University of Oregon, and has spoken to audiences from coast to coast. He lives in Seattle with his wife, three daughters, and assorted pets.
Books by Larson
- The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public Commodities (1992)
- Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun (1995)
- Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History (1999)
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair That Changed AmericaThe Devil in the White CityThe Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America is a 2003 non-fiction book by Erik Larson presented in a novelistic style. The book is based on real characters and events. Leonardo DiCaprio purchased the film rights in 2010.The book is set in Chicago circa...
(20032003 in literatureThe year 2003 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Peter Ackroyd - The Clerkenwell Tales*Atsuko Asano - No...
) - Thunderstruck (2006)
- In The Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and An American Family in Hitler's BerlinIn the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's BerlinIn the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin is a 2011 non-fiction book by Erik Larson...
(2011)