Edward Mordake

{{Short description|British urban legend}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2025}} {{redirect|Edward Mordrake|the episode of American Horror Story|Edward Mordrake (American Horror Story)}} [[File:Edward Mordake (illustrazione).jpg|thumb|Illustration of Mordake in the ''Boston Sunday Post'', 1889]] '''Edward Mordake''' (sometimes spelled '''Mordrake''') is the apocryphal subject of an urban legend who was born in the 19th century as the heir to an English peerage with a face at the back of his head enough to sport a double-sided head.<ref name="wagner">{{cite web|last=Wagner|first=Bayliss|title=Fact check: Edward Mordake, an English noble with two faces, is a literary creation|url=https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/07/22/fact-check-two-faced-edward-mordake-literary-creation/7985429002/|work=USA Today|date=July 22, 2021|access-date=September 18, 2021}}</ref> According to legend, the face could whisper, laugh or cry. Mordake repeatedly begged doctors to remove it, claiming it whispered bad things to him at night. Mordake died by suicide at the age of 23.

== Description == An account described Mordake's figure as one with "remarkable grace" and with a face similar to that of an Antinous.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QCEACwAAQBAJ&q=Edward+Mordake&pg=PT145|title=Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine: Human Book|last=Pyle|first=Walter L.|date=23 November 2015|publisher=谷月社|language=en}}</ref> The second face on the back of Mordake's {{nowrap|head{{tsp}}{{mdash}}}}{{tsp}}supposedly female{{nowrap|<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I1iDBQAAQBAJ&q=Edward+Mordake&pg=PA93|title=Freaks: We Who Are Not As Others|last=Mannix|first=Daniel P.|date=19 November 2014|publisher=eNet Press|isbn=978-1-61886-757-5|language=en}}</ref>{{tsp}}{{mdash}}}}{{tsp}}reportedly had a pair of eyes and a mouth that drooled.<ref>{{cite book|title=Writing Letters for the Blind|last=Fincke|first=Gary|publisher=Ohio State University Press|year=2003|isbn=978-0-8142-0950-9|location=Columbus|page=57}}</ref> The duplicate face could not see, eat, or speak, but was said to "sneer while Mordake was happy" and "smile while Mordake was weeping".<ref name="Gould1956">{{cite book|last=Gould|first=George M.|author-link=George M. Gould|title=Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TDZvCfUVO0QC&pg=PA124|access-date=October 29, 2014|year=1956|publisher=Blacksleet River|isbn=978-1-4499-7722-1|pages=124–125}}</ref> According to legend, Mordake repeatedly begged doctors to have his "demon face" removed, claiming that at night it whispered things that "one would only speak about in Hell", but no doctor would attempt it. This then led to Mordake secluding himself in a room before deciding to take his own life at the age of 23.<ref name="Gould1956"/><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oVs2AAAAQBAJ&q=Edward+Mordake&pg=PT57|title=The Secret History of Las Vegas: A Novel|last=Abani|first=Chris|date=7 January 2014|publisher=Penguin|isbn=978-0-698-14018-9|language=en}}</ref>

An account of Mordake's story was detailed in ''Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine'':<ref name="Gould1956"/>

{{quote|One of the weirdest, as well as the most melancholy stories of human deformity, is that of Edward Mordake, said to have been heir to one of the noblest peerages in England. He never claimed the title, however, and committed suicide in his twenty-second year. He lived his life in complete seclusion, refusing the visits even of the members of his own family. He was a young man of fine attainments, a profound scholar, and a musician of rare ability. His figure was remarkable for its grace, and his {{nowrap|face{{tsp}}{{mdash}}}}{{tsp}}that is to say, his natural {{nowrap|face{{tsp}}{{mdash}}}}{{tsp}}was that of an Antinous. But upon the back of his head was another face, that of a beautiful girl, "lovely as a dream, hideous as a devil." The female face was a mere mask, "occupying only a small portion of the posterior part of the skull, yet exhibiting every sign of intelligence, of a malignant sort, however." It would be seen to smile and sneer while Mordake was weeping. The eyes would follow the movements of the spectator, and the lips "would gibber without ceasing." No voice was audible, but Mordake avers that he was kept from his rest at night by the hateful whispers of his "devil twin", as he called it, "which never sleeps, but talks to me forever of such things as they only speak of in Hell. No imagination can conceive the dreadful temptations it sets before me. For some unforgiven wickedness of my forefathers, I am knit to this {{nowrap|fiend{{tsp}}{{mdash}}}}{{tsp}}for a fiend it surely is. I beg and beseech you to crush it out of human semblance, even if I die for it." Such were the words of the hapless Mordake to Manvers and Treadwell, his physicians. In spite of careful watching, he managed to procure poison, whereof he died, leaving a letter requesting that the "demon face" might be destroyed before his burial, "lest it continues its dreadful whisperings in my grave." At his own request, he was interred in a waste place, without stone or legend to mark his grave.}}

==Earliest reference== The first known description of Mordake is found in an 1895 article in ''The Boston Post'' authored by fiction writer Charles Lotin Hildreth.<ref>{{cite news |last=Hildreth |first=Charles Lotin |date=December 8, 1895 |title=The Wonders of Modern Science | url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/4697600/boston_post/ |newspaper=Boston Post |location=Boston |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=March 2, 2018}} {{free access}}</ref> The article describes a number of cases of what Hildreth refers to as "human freaks", including a woman who had the tail of a fish, a man with the body of a spider, a man who was half-crab, and Edward Mordake. Hildreth claimed to have found these cases described in old reports of the "Royal Scientific Society". According to a 2021 article in ''USA Today'', the only known "Royal Scientific Society" was founded in 1970 by Jordanian monarchs.<ref name="wagner"/> Nothing could be found in the records of the similarly named Royal Society of London.<ref name="wagner"/> Like many publications of the time, Hildreth's article was not factual, and was likely published by the newspaper to increase reader interest.<ref name="hoaxes.org">{{cite web |url=http://hoaxes.org/weblog/comments/edward_mordake |title=Edward Mordake—A Mystery Solved |first=Alex |last=Boese |date=24 April 2015 |work=The Museum of Hoaxes |access-date=July 2, 2016}}</ref>

==''Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine''== The 1896 medical encyclopedia ''Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine'', co-authored by Dr. George M. Gould and Dr. David L. Pyle, included an account of Mordake. The account was copied directly from Hildreth's article, and was credited only to a "lay source". The encyclopedia described the basic morphology of Mordake's condition, but it provided no medical diagnosis for the rare deformity. An explanation for the birth defect may have been a form of craniopagus parasiticus (a parasitic twin head with an undeveloped body),<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Bosmia|first1=Anand N.|last2=Smelser|first2=Luke B.|last3=Griessenauer|first3=Christoph J.|title=An apocryphal case of craniopagus parasiticus: the legend of Edward Mordake|journal=Child's Nervous System|date=7 November 2014|doi=10.1007/s00381-014-2581-6|pmid=25378260|volume=31|issue=12|pages=2211–2|doi-access=free}}</ref> a form of diprosopus (bifurcated craniofacial duplication), or an extreme form of parasitic twin (an unequal conjoined twin).

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * {{cite web|url=http://medchrome.com/supernatural/faced-edward-mordrake-truth-myth/|title=Medical Debate: Edward modrake a case of cranipagus parasiticus?|website=Medchrome|date=17 July 2014}} * {{cite web | url = http://thehumanmarvels.com/?p=125 | title = Edward Mordrake – 'Poor Edward' |first = J. Tithonus|last=Pednaud |website=The Human Marvels|date=6 July 2007 }} * {{cite web | url = http://hoaxes.org/weblog/comments/edward_mordake | title = Edward Mordake – A Mystery Solved |website=The Museum of Hoaxes}} * {{cite web |url=https://www.snopes.com/edward-mordrake/ |title=Fact Check: Edward Mordrake, the Man with Two Faces |author=Emery |first=David |date=14 November 2017 |publisher=Snopes |access-date=16 December 2017}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mordake, Edward}} Category:Fictional English people Category:Fictional nobility Category:Fictional suicides Category:Legendary creatures with supernumerary body parts Category:American urban legends Category:Parasitic twinning in culture