Decades before the term "serial killer" was coined, H.H. Holmes murdered dozens of people in his now-infamous Chicago "Murder Castle."

In his autobiography, Holmes struggled to define himself in the language of the late nineteenth century. As the "first"--or, as he labeled himself, "The Greatest Criminal of the Age"--he had no one to compare himself to, and no ready-made biographical structure to follow. Holmes was thus nearly able to invent himself from scratch.

This book minutely inspects how Holmes represented himself in his writings and confessions. Although the legitimacy of Holmes' accounts have been called into question, his biography mirrors the narrative structure of the true crime genre that emerged decades after his death.