Joseph Carey Merrick, born in England on August 5, 1952, is better known as The Elephant Man. Through horrible physical deformities which were almost impossible to describe, he spent much of his life exhibited as a fairground freak until even nineteenth-century sensibilities could take no more. Hounded, persecuted and starving, he ended up at London s Liverpool Street Station where he was rescued, housed and fed by the distinguished surgeon Frederick Treves. To Treves surprise, he discovered during the course of their friendship that lurking beneath the mass of Merrick's corrupting flesh lived a spirit that was as courageous as it had been tortured, and a nature as gentle and dignified as it had been deprived and tormented. The subject of several books, a Broadway hit, and a film, Joseph Merrick has become part of popular mythology. Here, in this fully revised edition containing new details, are the true and unromantic facts of his life. This is an extraordinary and moving story, set among the brutal realities of the Victorian world, telling of a tragic individual and his survival against overwhelming odds."
Chapter 1. ‘The great Freak of nature – Half-a-Man and Half-an-Elephant’
Chapter 2. On the Threshold of Eminence
Chapter 4. A Parade of Elephants and Early Griefs
Chapter 5. The Mercy of the Parish
Chapter 8. Come Safely into Harbour
Chapter 9. ‘Such a Gentle, Kindly Man, Poor Thing!’
Chapter 10. What Was the Matter With Joseph Merrick?
Chapter 11. The Burden Falls Away
Chapter 12. The Figure in Time’s Fabric
Appendix One: The Autobiography of Joseph Carey Merrick
Appendix Two: The Elephant Man, amplified from an account in the British Medical Journal
Appendix Three: ‘The Elephant Man’ by Sir Frederick Treves