Depraved - Softcover

Schechter, Harold

3.98

2,330 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0671690302 ISBN 13: 9780671690304

Publisher: Pocket, 1996

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The disturbing story of H. H. Holmes, the criminal mind behind the infamous "Castle of Horror" torture house, describes the ways in which he deceived and murdered his victims. Reprint.

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Review:

Herman Mudgett, who called himself Dr. H. H. Holmes, seemed the epitome of the late 19th century "Golden Age": he was a well-dressed, charismatic, self-made entrepreneur (think Andrew Carnegie). Unfortunately for his many victims, he was also a liar, bigamist, debtor, con man, and murderer. The setting for several of his murders was the bizarre urban "castle" he built in Chicago--a ramshackle construction with mazelike corridors, soundproof rooms, sealed vaults, oversized furnaces, and chutes leading down to the cellar. Holmes's undoing was an insurance scam in which he planned to use a corpse supplied by a doctor to fake his partner's death, but ended up killing the partner, his wife, and his five children. The Boston Book Review wrote, "[Harold] Schechter's account of this charming, repulsive monster is both an astonishing piece of popular history as well as a near clinical analysis of as sinister a killer as this country has ever produced."
Also recommended: Schechter's books about Albert Fish (Deranged) and Ed Gein (Deviant).

About the Author:

Harold Schechter is a professor at Queens College, the City University of New York, where he teaches courses in American literature and culture.

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