Herman W. Mudgett

author

Herman W. Mudgett

1861–1896

Known to history as H. H. Holmes, he remains one of the most infamous figures of 19th-century American crime. Born Herman Webster Mudgett in New Hampshire, he became notorious for fraud, deception, and murders linked to Chicago in the early 1890s.

1 Audiobook

Holmes' Own Story In Which the Alleged Multi-murderer and Arch Conspirator Tells of the Twenty-two Tragic Deaths and Disappearances in Which He Is Said to Be Implicated, With Moyamensing Prison Diary Appendix

Holmes' Own Story In Which the Alleged Multi-murderer and Arch Conspirator Tells of the Twenty-two Tragic Deaths and Disappearances in Which He Is Said to Be Implicated, With Moyamensing Prison Diary Appendix

by Herman W. Mudgett

About the author

Born in Gilmanton, New Hampshire, on May 16, 1861, Herman Webster Mudgett later used the name H. H. Holmes. He studied medicine at the University of Michigan and built a life around false identities, scams, and schemes that eventually made him a nationally known criminal figure.

Holmes is most often associated with Chicago, where he operated during the years around the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. Accounts of his crimes helped create the lasting legend of the so-called "Murder Castle," though historians and reference works note that some of the more sensational stories about him have been debated or exaggerated over time.

He was arrested, tried for the murder of Benjamin Pitezel, and executed in Philadelphia on May 7, 1896. More than a century later, his life still sits at the uneasy border between documented crime history and American mythmaking.