Customer Reviews

The True History of the Elephant Man

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'Tis true my form is something odd
but blaming me is blaming God,
Could I create myself anew
I would not fail in pleasing you.

If I could reach from pole to pole
or grasp the ocean with a span,
I would be measured by the soul -
the mind's the standard of the man.

I bought this book many years ago, unfortunately I made the mistake of lending it to someone and I never got it back. This is a remarkable book. I was touched by Joseph Merrick years ago. For the past nine years, I have been running the Joseph Carey Merrick Tribute Website. It is a site dedicated to Joseph, the person - not Joseph, the disability. I'm presently heading a London and Leicester (UK) campaign to have a commemorative plaque erected in his honour. He deserves to have a permanent tribute. He has done a great deal to advance medical science, through his skeleton, and thanks to him, there will one day be a cure for Proteus Syndrome. It's time the world said 'thank you'. Please give your moral support by visiting the site. I'm not sure if web addresses can be mentioned here, so simply type the following in your web browser: Joseph Carey Merrick Tribute Website

Joseph Merrick is a personal hero of mine. I picked up this book around ten years ago when I was diagnosed with what was thought to be an inoperable spinal tumour and I was told I had Neurofibromatosis, what was then thought to be the disease attributed to Joseph Merrick's. Not only was it an inspirational story that helped me in my struggle to learn to walk again but I found it (and still do) an intensly readable account of surely one of Britain's most unfortuante son's and one of popular culture's most enduring figure. The story of The Elephant Man is familiar to many from the 1980 Brooksfilms production starring Anthony Hopkins as Sir Frederick Treves and John Hurt as the enigmatic Joseph Merrick. Michael Howell and Peter Ford tell Merrick's story with a rich blend of history giving the reader an insight into late nineteenth century England and the fairground attraction that gripped the European community as well as exploring the medical insight into Neurofibromatosis the disease which, at the time of it's orignal printing, it was widely regarded Merrick did indeed have. This insight proves fascinating without alienating the reader with complicated medical jargon. Whilst Frederick Treves figures prominently, perhaps too much so as other reviewers have suggested, one can't deny that it was this passionate surgeon that was Joseph's salvation in the last years of his life providing a quality of life he surely would never had if there lives had not intertwined.

As with the 1980 film The Elephant Man Howell and Ford's book does question Treves motives for rescuing Merrick only to make him a curiosity all over again within the Victorian medical fraternity leaving the reader to ponder those motives, but when one reads the Appendix written by Treves himself shortly before his death in 1923 included in this book one can only admire the special frienship that was forged between these two men. Joseph was a hero on so many levels something that a clear theme throughout the book and it leaves little doubt in my mind why his memory is so enduring even today. There simply hasn't been a human being quite like Joseph Merrick since his death at 27 years in 1890. Howell and Ford's The True History Of The Elephant Man is a compelling account that is as relevant now as it was on it's original release in 1980. And like the film I can only describe as a luminous experience...

I inherited this book from a deceased family member. I had heard about David Lynch's movie about The Elephant Man, but I never saw it. Reading this book made me cry and empathize with Joseph Carey Merrick for his condition and the ostractize he received from the world based on his looks and not his soul.

Joseph Carey Merrick was the real Elephant Man not a fictional character. Joseph had a loving mother that died when he was a child and his father moved and remarried. His step-mother didn't like him and scorned him for his looks and his inability to find work due to his lameness, telling him that what she fed him was more than he earned. Eventually he refused to return home for meals because he didn't want to listen to step-mother barate him anymore. His father stopped looking for him, but did get him a hawker's license to hawk wares on the street. But people were afraid of him and would not buy his wares, and he acquired a gathering of curious people around him. His uncle gave him shelter for a while, but Joseph left there too. He worked in the workhouse a place of refuge and work for the poor and destitute for 3 years, but hated it and left. He ended up being exhibited as a sideshow freak under the name of "The Elephant Man" because his congenital deformity made it so that he resemble that of an elephant (or so the posters showed him to resemble). When he was at Whitechapel Road, across the street from the London Hospital Dr. Treves saw him for the first time and brought him to the hospital to examine him. Over the next few years Joseph was exhibited, his managers robbed him of his life savings and left. Joseph went back to Whitechapel Road and to the care of the only friend he knew . . . Dr. Treves. He spent his remaining years under the friendship and care of the staff at the London Hospital.

I loved this story. Michael Howell and Peter Ford told a true and compassionate account of Joseph Merrick's life. A man who was like any other human being with hopes and dreams with one setback.. His congenital deformity that prohibited his ability to be like, and experience and sleep lying down on his back like other people. Through all of years and hardships, Joseph was scared, but kind and kept a calm serenity inside himself about his condition. He had so much gratitude for the staff and his new friends who helped him, he made cardboard models and sent these things to those people who saw to his care in his appreciation for their help. The book also includes pictures how Merrick looked when he was admitted to the London Hospital, and a display of his skeleton after death.

Since I was a child the story of the Elephant Man has fascinated me; anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, or not part of the "cool crowd," or somehow physically blemished (in my case, adolescent acne, child's play compared with Merrick's condition) can identify with him. This is one of the earliest books dedicated to uncovering the truth about Joseph Carey Merrick (whose name was for some reason changed to John Merrick by Sir Frederick Treves and thus written that way in the play and movie). We learn such obscure things as: who were his parents? what did they do for a living? how old was he when his disease began to manifest itself? what did he do before becoming a sidehow freak? (answer: as a teen he peddled goods door to door and then rolled cigars in a factory before going to the Leicester Union Workhouse). The only inaccurate thing about this book seems to be a chapter entitled "What was wrong with him?" The authors firmly believe it was neurofibromatosis, but in the early '90s medical researchers began to believe that it was really an ultra-rare condition called Proteus syndrome. No matter, however, for this is the least interesting chapter. Concentrate instead on Merrick's inspiring story. I must warn everyone: the book includes many photographs of Merrick's grotesque body, which will upset young children. I would not let anyone under, say, 12, read or look at this book, because they may get nightmares.

Very good and in-depth book on the life of not only Joseph Merrick, but also Mr. Treves and many other people who happened into his life. Can you imagine even for one minute being in this guys shoes? I mean can any of us even begin to grasp the sort of life Joseph must of had to deal with? Can you imagine being so utterly repulsive looking (sorry, but he was) that just one glance at your face would make people flee, children cry, and women pass out, I mean think about just how horrible that would have been. He also suffered from chronic pain, and smelled something awful. Yet, beyond that he was such a kind, gentle, shy, caring, lovable and curious individual, who by all accounts would of been completely normal and was highly intelligent. What a life, what a great true story of a very strong determined soul.

I first read the original article on the elephant man Joseph Merrick by Dr Treves in a magazine in the mid 1970s. I then saw the movie in 1980. The movie peaked my interest for further info so I bought the book. The book not only goes into extensive detail of the disease but goes also extensively into Joseph Merrick's life as well as life in the Victorian era as it effected the common man. The imagery of the period was brought out by the writers: the London Hospital, the surrounding area, the showmen and their lives, etc. The research was very detailed, although later after the book's publication we learned of the possibility that Merrick suffered from Proteus and not pneumofibromatosis. This book should be read by anybody interested in these diseases as well as anybody interested in this time period.

This book cannot help but touch every human being who reads it! With so many disabled people in our world, and our pre-occupation with appearances and the body beautiful, the elephant man story covers all the physical and emotional aspects of living with an extreme disability with dignity and humility for all readers to experience. Of course the help and support he and others must receive all helps. Peter Ford presents his extensive research findings on those that came to the elephant man's aid in a personable way. Although the film is based on his life, the book reflects Joseph Merrick's life in reality, politely comparing the differences between his film persona and his real life condition. It helped me to fill in the gaps left after watching the film and left me with a thankfulness of how well off my family and I are.

With twelve viewings so far, David Lynch's "The Elephant Man" has been my favorite movie for about twenty years, indeed one of the very few movies I would call a masterpiece. So it is quite a mystery why I should have waited so long to read this biography of its protagonist, Joseph Carey Merrick, whom the movie, following errors in the source material itself, incorrectly names John.

Having already seen a decent BBC documentary on the subject ("The Curse of the Elephant Man"), I was not totally unaware of the facts of the case, and I already knew for instance that Joseph spent some time in the countryside, something which Lynch decided not to depict in his film so as to achieve a more complete immersion in his bleak, black and white vision of Victorian London (indeed, one type of shock a fan of the movie will encounter while reading the book comes from its occasional touches of colour : I remember being struck by the blue bunsene light that lit the Elephant Man's face when Treves first met him.)

What is most surprising about the book, is how the film managed to be so faithful to Merrick's psychology (Lynch's John is the true Joseph, not some Hollywood fantasy), while altering many elements in the background, most of the secondary characters being dramatically different.

To mention a few of the changes from reality to film :

Joseph's manager as a freak, Tom Norman, was turned by the screenplay into Freddie Jones' very Dickensian Bytes, who beat and exploited his freak. Actually, Tom Norman was one of the few decent persons whom Joseph encountered before his change of fortune, enabling him to save as much as £50 (enough to live for a year without working) over his short career. The true evil was in fact the British government, which decided to ban all exhibitions of freaks as indecent (and references to Joseph's "nakedness" suggests that they may well have been), thereby forcing them out of the market and depriving them of their livelihood. To the writers' discharge, though, it might be argued that the fictional Bytes was a composite of Norman and the evil Austrian impresario who robbed Joseph of his savings in Belgium, which somewhat minimizes the gratuitousness of an all-too-typical Hollywood slur on the entrepreneur.

One of the famous scenes of the movie, in which Joseph attends a pantomime, is asked by Treves to "stand up" before the audience and is applauded by them, is a complete reversal of the true incident. Actually, Joseph attended the show incognito, and the most stringent precautions were taken to keep the rest of the audience unaware of his arrival, presence and departure (but then, the screenwriters needed their second "stand up" scene for dramatic reasons.)

In the film, Anne Bancroft's Mrs Kendal is shown visiting Joseph regularly at the hospital. Actually, the actress never met him in person, though she did send him her photograph and other presents. On the other hand, Princess Alexandra, who is shown much more sparingly in the film, did visit him several times, and send him Christmas cards.

The scene in which Michael Elphick's night porter introduces a bunch of drunks and prostitutes into Joseph's rooms may also be an exaggeration from much more minor real-life incidents. Also, on his return to London, Joseph did not find refuge in the toilets, but in the waiting room of the railway station. As for the model church he made, Lynch hides the fact that Joseph was actually using commercialized cut-and-assemble models from the local bookstore, which the nurses helped him assemble. The film makes it appear that Joseph had some wonderful artistic gift and was very dexterous, whereas his enormous right hand prevented him from even working in the cigar industry.

One thing I was curious about was Joseph's religion, as the film has very little to say about it, or about religion at the hospital in general. His mother was a Baptist, and the Bible was a book he had read several times over. When at the London Hospital, he was "confirmed" by an Anglican "bishop" (I am using scare quotes because as a Catholic I believe Anglican "bishops" are not validly ordained and, being mere laymen, do not have the power to confirm anyone) and allowed to participate in church services at the chapel.

Howell and Ford's book is truly a biography everyone should read. It gives an excellent picture of Victorian London, conditions in Poor Houses, the whole milieu of country fairs and freak shows and life at the London Hospital. It also contains a two-page autobiographical piece by Joseph himself, and the relevant extract from Treves' famous "The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences", but it is well-researched enough to point out the few errors and inaccuracies in these primary sources themselves. It also corrects erroneous interpretations in Ashley Montagu's earlier book on the subject.

All in all, this is a superb read, which could serve as concrete argument against a culture of death which is too ready to consider some lives not worth living. "Happy every hour of the day", after all, was how Joseph himself described his life at the hospital. And his happiness is one of the things most readers will paradoxically end up envying him.

The very nature of this topic is difficult to accept given its sadness. However, with only the very-well-made movie to capture its subject, this book helps define everything, thereafter. Nothing can alleviate the weight of its subject matter; but, it does help one to interpret the man, more than the mystique. Ultimately, it makes you glad that Mr. Merrick did have a graceful exit from life given the dire physical deformity that shaped it.

This is definitely the best and most thoroughly researched biography of Joseph Carey Merrick, aka "The Elephant Man." Beautifully written, very readable and thoroughly researched account of a gentle courageous soul trapped inside a body terribly deformed by Proteus syndrome.

Recently, a new edition of this book was issued which purported to contain 'fresh information" on Joseph Merrick. Alas, it is only a paperback version of this 2001 edition, with no new research from 2001 on. Not only that, the photographs in the newer edition are of poor resolution.

This edition remains for now the gold standard of Merrick research, with excellent photographs of Merrick and the important people and places in his life. We can only hope that a newer, more updated biography will emerge from the revelations that have come to light. One of the most prolific websites of up-to-date research topics is the Friends of Joseph Carey Merrick group on Facebook. We also have Jonathan Evans, the latest curator of the London Hospital Archives, to thank for his expertise and devotion to Merrick's legacy.

I highly recommend this edition!