Edward Mordake: 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 on the back of his head, according to the narrative.
The face, according to folklore, has the ability to whisper, laugh, or cry. Before committing himself at the age of 23, Mordake implored physicians to remove it, alleging it muttered evil things to him at night.
Is the Real Story of Edward Mordrake
Mordake’s figure was characterised as having “extraordinary grace” and a visage akin to that of an Antinous, according to one report.
A second face on the back of Mordake’s skull, allegedly female, was said to have a pair of eyes and a drooling mouth.
Although the replica face was unable to see, eat, or communicate, it was claimed to “sneer while Mordake was joyful” and “grin while Mordake was crying.”
According to tradition, Mordake asked doctors to remove his “devil face,” stating that it muttered things that “one would only speak about in hell” at night, but no doctor would do so. Mordake then locked himself away in a room before killing himself at the age of 23.
Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine: An Account of Mordake’s Life is documented in Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine: An Account of Mordake’s Life.
Edward Mordake, heir of one of England’s noblest peerages, is reputed to have had one of the strangest, as well as the saddest, stories of human ugliness.
However, he never claimed the title and committed suicide when he was twenty-three years old. He lived in utter seclusion, refusing even his own family members’ visits.
He was a young man of great accomplishments, a brilliant scholar, and a gifted musician. His form was graceful, and his face – or, more accurately, his natural face – was that of an Antinous.
But there was another visage on the back of his skull, that of a lovely girl, “pretty as a dream, horrible as a devil.”
Despite occupying only a small piece of the posterior part of the skull, yet demonstrating every trace of intelligence, of a malignant sort, however,” the female face was merely a mask. While Mordake was crying, it could be seen smiling and sneering.
The eyes would follow the spectator’s movements, while the lips “would gibber incessantly.” Although no voice could be heard, Mordake claims that the angry whispers of his father kept him up at night “”I have a devil twin.
He said, “who never sleeps and talks to me all the time about things that they only talk about in Hell.” No imagination can fathom the horrifying temptations it places in front of me.
I am bound to this creature – for it is a fiend – because of some unforgivable sin of my predecessors. Even if I die for it, I implore and urge you to crush it out of human semblance.
Such were the remarks of the unfortunate Mordake to his doctors, Manvers and Treadwell.
Despite his best efforts, he was able to obtain poison, from which he died, leaving a letter begging that the “devil visage” be destroyed before he was buried.
Lest it continue its awful whisperings in my grave.” He was buried in a desolate location at his own request, with no stone or legend to commemorate his burial.
The earliest mention
Mordake was first described in an essay published in The Boston Post in 1895 by fiction writer Charles Lotin Hildreth.
A woman with the tail of a fish, a man with the body of a spider, a man who was half-crab, and Edward Mordake are among the “human freaks” described in the piece, according to Hildreth.
Hildreth claimed to have discovered these occurrences in old “Royal Scientific Society” papers. Jordanian kings created the only known “Royal Scientific Society” in 1970, according to an article in USA Today.
The records of the Royal Society of London, which has a similar name, yielded nothing.
Hildreth’s storey, like many others published at the time, was presumably published by the newspaper to pique readers’ attention.
Medicine’s Oddities and Curiousities
An account of Mordake was included in the 1896 medical encyclopaedia Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, co-authored by Dr. George M. Gould and Dr. David L. Pyle.
The account was taken verbatim from Hildreth’s article, and only a “lay source” was given credit. The encyclopaedia detailed Mordake’s fundamental morphology but did not offer a medical diagnosis for the rare defect.
A kind of craniopagus parasiticus (a parasitic twin head with an undeveloped body),[9] a form of diprosopus (bifurcated craniofacial duplication), or an extreme form of parasitic twin head with an undeveloped body could all explain the birth abnormality (an unequal conjoined twin).
In contemporary culture
Mordake has been the subject of a number of poems, plays, and songs, including:
• In the 1976 edition of The Book of Lists, Mordake is listed as one of the “2 Very Special Cases” on a list of “10 People with Extra Limbs or Digits.”
• For his album Alice, Tom Waits created a song called “Poor Edward” about Mordake (2002).
• Mordake o la condición infame, a novel based on Mordake’s narrative, was released in 2001 by Spanish writer Irene Gracia.
• A thriller film based on the storey, Edward Mordake, is apparently in the works in the United States. There is no information about when the film will be released. [14]
• The character Edward Mordrake’, played by Wes Bentley, appears in three episodes of the FX anthology series American Horror Story: Freak Show: “Edward Mordrake, Pt. 1,” “Edward Mordrake, Pt. 2,” and “Curtain Call.”
• In 2016, a short film based on Mordake’s storey, Edward the Damned, was released.
• The Dual-Faced Outcast is a second novel about Edward Mordake, written in Russian between 2012 and 2014 and released by Helga Royston in 2017.
• On their 2014 album Cynosure, the Canadian metal band Viathyn included a song named “Edward Mordrake.”
• The lyrics “It’s like a hat for Ed Mordake” appear in the Irish quartet Girl Band’s song “Shoulderblades,” which was released in 2019.
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