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The Man with Two Faces

 Did Edward Mordrake’s ‘Devil Twin’ Force Him To Suicide? The Truth Behind The Legend

Edward Mordrake's story, “The Man with Two Faces,” comes from a book of medical oddities - which appeared to have copied it from a fictional newspaper article.


On December 8, 1895, the Boston Sunday Post ran an article titled "The Wonders of Modern Science" which presented astonished readers with reports from the so-called "Royal Scientific Society" documenting the existence of "wonders and monsters" so far. - there imaginary vintages.

The "human monsters" supposedly cataloged by British scientists included a mermaid, a terrifying "human crab" and the hapless Edward Mordrake, who would soon become an enduring urban legend.

The Myth Of Edward Mordrake Begins


As the Post reported, Edward Mordrake (originally spelled Mordake) was a smart and handsome young English nobleman, as well as a "musician of rare ability." But with all of its great blessings came a terrible curse. In addition to his normal beautiful face, Mordrake possessed a terrifying disfigurement: another face on the back of his head.

This second horrible face was that of a "beautiful girl" - "beautiful as a dream, hideous as a devil". The strange face possessed an intelligence "of a malignant kind." Whenever Mordrake cried, the second face "smiled and chuckled".

Mordrake was constantly tormented by his "twin devil", who kept him up all night, muttering "things that you only talk about in hell". The young lord was eventually driven mad and committed suicide at the age of 22, leaving behind a note ordering that the evil face be destroyed after his death, "lest he continue his horrific whispering in my heart. grave".

In 1896, American physicians George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle included Mordrake's story in their book, Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, a collection of specific medical cases. Gould and Pyle were legitimate ophthalmologists with successful medical practices, but they seem to have been pretty gullible in at least one instance, as Edward Mordrake's story was false.

Investigating The Truth Behind The “Man With Two Faces”

As Alex Boese's blog, Museum of Hoaxes, diligently deduced in 2015, the author of the original Post article, Charles Lotin Hildreth, was a science fiction poet and writer. His stories tended towards the fantastic and another world.

But just because an article is written by someone who tends to write fiction does not mean that the article itself is fiction. Yet there are many clues that point to the falsity of Mordrake's story.

On the one hand, Hildreth's article cites the "Royal Scientific Society" as the source of her many bizarre medical cases, but an organization by that name did not exist in the 19th century.

The Royal Society of London was a centuries-old scientific institution, but there was nothing both "royal" and "scientific" in name in the Western world. While not real, the name was indeed plausible, which gave Hildreth's story an added air of credibility.

Second, Hildreth's article appears to be the first time that one of the medical cases he describes has appeared in any literature, scientific or otherwise. The entire Royal Society of London database is searchable online, and Boese couldn't find any of Hildreth's anomalies in his records - from the Norfolk Spider (a human head with six hairy legs) to the Fish Woman. of Lincoln (a typical mermaid creature).

“When we realize this,” Boese writes, “then it becomes clear that Hildreth's article was fictional. It was all born of his imagination, including Edward Mordake.

It turns out that newspapers from the late 19th century were not held to the same editorial standards as they are today. They were sources of both information and entertainment, and often filled with fictional tales presented as non-fictional.

Hildreth's tales were not irresponsible journalism, per se, they were just written convincingly enough to fool a few doctors - and to last in the public imagination for over a century. However, Hildreth passed away just a few months after her article was published, so he couldn't quickly see that the American public was being fooled by her wild creativity.

The Enduring Legacy Of Edward Mordrake


 

Edward Mordrake's story has recently seen a resurgence in popularity, in part thanks to the American Horror Story television series.

The show rehashes the basics of urban legend, though the televised incarnation of Mordrake is driven to murder rather than suicide by his evil second face. The writers must have taken a lot of inspiration from the original Boston Post article, as the lobster also made an appearance that same season.

Lest modern readers think they are so much wiser than their Victorian ancestors that they could never be wowed by such an absurd story, in 2018 a photo purported to depict the remains of Mordrake's head went viral.

This is not the first time that a photo of the doomed nobleman has captured public attention; however, like all the others, it is far from authentic.

The horrific Janus-like skull is, in fact, just a papier-mâché artist's imagination of what Edward Mordrake might have looked like. The artist said it was created entirely for entertainment purposes. The other famous photo that is often mistakenly labeled as authentic is the work of a different artist, this one done in wax.

Of course, even the most fantastic stories contain at least a little grain of truth. The medical condition known as "craniofacial duplication" (the result of abnormal protein expression) can lead to the duplication of facial features of an embryo.

The condition is extremely rare and usually fatal, although there are recent documented cases of infants who have managed to survive for a short time with the mutation.

Lali Singh was born with the disease in 2008.

Far from thinking that the child had been cursed like Edward Mordrake, the inhabitants of her small village believed her to be an incarnation of the Hindu goddess Durga, who is traditionally depicted with several limbs.

After poor baby Lali died when she was only a few months old, the villagers built a temple in her honor.

After discovering Edward Mordrake, "The Man with Two Faces", discover the most interesting quirks of P.T. Cirque de Barnum. then read about Raymond Robinson, the true urban legend of "Charlie No-Face".

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