Edward Mordrake

Edward Mordrake is an apocryphal figure from an urban legend about a 19th-century English nobleman said to have been born with an extra face on the back of his head.

Edward Mordrake is an apocryphal figure from an urban legend about a 19th-century English nobleman said to have been born with an extra face on the back of his head. The legend claims the face could whisper, laugh, and cry, and that Mordrake later died by suicide at age 23. The story is widely regarded as fictional and is often discussed as a modern example of sensational folklore.

Legend

The most common version of the legend states that Edward Mordake was a 19th-century English aristocrat who had a second face on the back of his head. The face was said to behave independently and to torment him at night, and the story claims he begged doctors to remove it, but none would attempt the procedure. According to the tale, he died by suicide at age 23.

Origin of the story

Modern accounts trace the legend to a sensational 1895 newspaper article, later repeated in medical and popular writings. The tale was presented as factual, but subsequent research identified it as fabricated. Later retellings helped spread the tale in popular culture and online.

Fictional status

Reference works and later commentary describe Mordrake as an apocryphal or fictional person rather than a documented historical figure. The legend is now discussed as a classic urban myth, and no historical evidence has been found to support the claims.

Medical context

The story is sometimes linked in popular retellings to rare craniofacial conditions such as diprosopus or parasitic twinning. Although those conditions are real, they do not support the specific claims made in the Mordrake legend, and the tale remains unsubstantiated.