Edward Mordake Englishman with two faces Country: Great Britain

Biography of Edward Mordrake

Edward Mordrake, an Englishman with Two Faces, is said to have lived in the 19th century. He became famous for his highly unusual deformity - a second face on the back of his head. There is limited information available about Edward Mordrake, and the exact dates of his birth and death remain unknown. It is believed that he came from a highly influential family, one of the noblest in England at that time. As the heir of his lineage, Mordrake was a talented and educated young man who excelled in various areas, including music and academics.

Unfortunately, his congenital deformity greatly complicated Mordrake's life. While he appeared quite decent from the front, people were immediately repelled by him when they saw him from the side or back due to the second face on his head. According to some versions of Mordrake's story, the second face belonged to a beautiful girl, although this is most likely a poetic myth. It is difficult to determine the exact nature of Mordrake's condition, but it is most likely an example of parasitic twins. Such twins always belong to the same sex as their "originals."

The existence of parasitic twins is extremely rare but not entirely unknown. The conception of twins is not as difficult as it may seem, but unfortunately, only one embryo usually survives until birth, as it manages to absorb its weaker sibling in the womb. Interestingly, a similar twin served as the basis for the plot of one of Stephen King's novels. However, sometimes the absorption is not complete, and that is when people like Edward Mordrake are born. It is easy to imagine how much his second face complicated his life. Legends also attributed a certain, extremely malicious intelligence to Mordrake's twin face, claiming that it whispered satanic things to him at night. Sadly, even in our time, doctors are unable to successfully perform such an operation to remove the twin.

Most versions of Mordrake's story end the same way - at the age of 23, the hopeless Edward takes his own life. The details of his suicide vary slightly in different legends, with some claiming that Mordrake took poison, while others say he shot his second face between the eyes. Regardless, all legends mention a farewell note in which Mordrake asks for his second face to be destroyed before his burial, so that at least in the grave, it would stop its nightmarish whispers.

It is evident that the story of Mordrake, if such a person ever existed, has reached us in a highly fictionalized form. For a while, it was even believed that Edward Mordrake was nothing more than a terrifying legend of the past century. However, it is still possible to explain some parts of the legend from a scientific point of view, as there are other documented cases of similar congenital deformities. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the attention of many doctors was drawn to Chang Tzu Ping, a Chinese man who was also born with two faces. His second face consisted of a mouth, several teeth, a piece of scalp, a deformed tongue, and rough outlines of other features. Of course, the second face showed no signs of independent thought; even its lips moved only in sync with Ping's main lips. It is believed that American doctors were able to remove Chang's second face, although there is not much compelling evidence to support this claim.