Crude violacein, consisting of violacein and deoxyviolacein, displays many attractive bio-activities in the field of drug therapy. To produce crude violacein from an industrially economic carbon source, we firstly introduced the violacein pathway into Escherichia coli B8/pTRPH1, which was previously engineered to accumulate tryptophan from glucose. A crude violacein production capacity of 0.25gL(-1) OD600-1 was obtained using glucose-containing medium. By further overexpressing each of the five genes involved in violacein synthesis pathway, VioE was found as the rate-limiting step for the violacein production. The optimal strain of B8/pTRPH1-pVio-VioE was then used for fed-batch fermentation in a 5-L bioreactor and a crude violacein titer of 4.45gL(-1), as well as a productivity of 98.7mgL(-1)h(-1), was obtained. This engineered strain showed the highest violacein titer and productivity reported so far. Our optimal strain of E. coli B8/pTRPH1-pVio-VioE by overexpression of the rate-limiting VioE in violacein synthesis pathway was a potential violacein producer by directly using glucose for industrial application.