I love American Horror Story! last year they gave us The Axman, who was real (or urban legend real) and this year:

Edward Mordake

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For the American Horror Story: Freak Show episode, see Edward Mordrake.

Edward Mordrake was the name given to an apocryphal 19th-century heir to an unspecified English peerage who was said to have suffered from a form of Diprosopus. According to sources, he had, on the back of his head, an extra face which could neither eat nor speak out loud, although it was described as being able to laugh and cry. Edward reportedly begged doctors to have his "Demon face" removed, claiming that it whispered to him at night, but no doctor would attempt it. He committed suicide when he was 23 years old. [1]

The story has been disputed in the past and was likely at least enriched with fictional elements.[2] The description of Edward Mordrake's condition is somewhat similar to those of Chang Tzu Ping[3] and Pasqual Pinon. Both Mordrake and Pinon are featured as the "2 Very Special Cases" on a list of "10 People With Extra Limbs or Digits" in 1976 edition of The Book of Lists.[4]

The 1896 text Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine mentions a version of the story,[1] and Mordrake has been featured in many texts, plays, and songs.[5]

This is the story as told in Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine:[1]

"One of the weirdest as well as most melancholy stories of human deformity is that of Edward Mordrake, 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-third year. He lived 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 face — that is to say, his natural face — 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 been seen to smile and sneer while Mordrake was weeping. The eyes would follow the movements of the spectator, and the lips 'would gibber without ceasing'. No voice was audible, but Mordrake 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 fiend — 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 Mordrake 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."

In popular culture[edit]

Tom Waits wrote a song about Mordrake titled "Poor Edward" for his album Alice (2002).[6]

A US thriller film named Edward Mordrake, and based on the story, is scheduled for a 24 October 2014 release.[7]

Two episodes of the FX anthology series American Horror Story: Freak Show have the titles "Edward Mordrake, Pt. 1" and "Edward Mordrake, Pt. 2",[8] the first of which aired on October 22, 2014. Wes Bentley is portraying Mordrake in the series.

See also: Diprosopus; Craniopagus parasiticus; Polycephaly.