Edward Mordake (sometimes spelled Mordrake) is the apocryphal subject of a nineteenth-century English urban legend. According to the popular myth, Mordake was born as the heir to a noble English peerage but carried a bizarre physical anomaly: a second, fully formed face situated on the back of his head, giving him a double-sided appearance.
The legend details that while the second face could not speak in a normal voice, it was capable of independent expressions and actions, such as laughing, crying, and whispering. Mordake was reportedly tormented by this secondary entity, claiming that it whispered terrible and malevolent things to him during the night. He repeatedly begged various doctors to surgically remove the face, but no physician was willing or able to perform the operation.
Unable to endure the relentless psychological torment of his condition, Mordake ultimately died by suicide at the young age of twenty-three. Though his story is entirely apocryphal and lacks historical evidence, the narrative of the two-faced heir has endured as a classic piece of gothic folklore, exploring themes of duality, isolation, and horror.
