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.
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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