Author
Erik Larson
Birth Date
January 3, 1954
(72 Years)
Associated Country
United States
Erik Larson is an American author and journalist known for his narrative nonfiction that blends historical research with the pacing of a novel. He was born in Brooklyn and studied Russian history before earning a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
Larson began his career as a journalist, writing for publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Time, before turning to book-length nonfiction. He gained widespread acclaim with The Devil in the White City (2003), which intertwines the story of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with that of a serial killer operating at the time.
His work is known for its meticulous research, vivid storytelling, and ability to bring historical events to life. Larson is widely regarded as a leading figure in narrative nonfiction, making complex history accessible and compelling for a broad audience.
Larson began his career as a journalist, writing for publications such as The Wall Street Journal and Time, before turning to book-length nonfiction. He gained widespread acclaim with The Devil in the White City (2003), which intertwines the story of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with that of a serial killer operating at the time.
His work is known for its meticulous research, vivid storytelling, and ability to bring historical events to life. Larson is widely regarded as a leading figure in narrative nonfiction, making complex history accessible and compelling for a broad audience.
Books
The Demon of Unrest 2026
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...
On Winston Churchill’s first day as prime minister, Adolf Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the...
Dead Wake 2015
On May 1, 1915, with WWI entering its tenth month, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of...
The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Nazi Germany in a year that proved to be a turning point in history.
A mild-mannered professor...
Thunderstruck 2007
In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men—Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of...
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...
Isaac's Storm 2000
September 8, 1900, began innocently in the seaside town of Galveston, Texas. Even Isaac Cline, resident meteorologist for the U.S. Weather Bureau failed to grasp the true meaning of the strange...
Lethal Passage 1995
It begins with an account of a crime that is by now almost commonplace: on December 16, 1988, sixteen-year-old Nicholas Elliot walked into his Virginia high school with a Cobray M-11/9 and several...
Naked Consumer 1994
After receiving a sudden surge of junk mail directed at new parents—even though his wife at the time was merely pregnant— Erik Larson, the National Bestselling author, set out to explore the lengths...