The Resurrectionist The Lost Work of Dr. - By E. B. Hudspeth Page 0,19

on the backs of your hands just along the knuckles while you play, ensuring proper posture. Then you play something bland and unimaginative; however, the stick will never fall to the floor, bravo! When I perform, the stick falls, then a symphony flows from me.

—Black

* * *

October 1901

Bernard,

I am no longer performing, or traveling. I now indulge in the luxury and leisure of my home. I am no longer in the service of man.

You must know these creations can mean nothing to you nor any other educated man as they meant nothing to me until they were there, on a table before me. Their fatal wounds visible, the hollow in their gaze that no taxidermist could create. No artist or magician is able to conjure the sincerity that only life can bring to the eyes. Bernard, I tell you, I now have them. They live.

I understand if you have concerns for my welfare. In time, after my research is complete, I will unveil my discovery. I am as confident as the sun is bright that you won’t be disappointed. All is progressing well with little disruption; I pray heaven not change that, I cannot afford a disturbance. My time now is vital, and how long I need I could never know.

I trust that you have, by this point, received the gift I sent to Samuel and I hope that all is in good order with you and my most gifted child. His well-being is certainly my greatest wish, and a promising future I am certain is assured whilst he remains in your steady care.

Please forgive my flattery as I am writing on a rare occasion of delight and rejoicing and all seems wonderful; the only dread, I suppose, is that I am restrained to the primitive exercise of poets and dreamers: scratching on paper, splashing ink, fumbling to communicate my joy, my bliss and exaltation. Finally, Bernard, I have finally come close enough to see that it can be achieved. If I could I wouldn’t write another stroke, I would grab hold of you and show you. Against your will and in defiance of your doubts, I would throw you to the floor of my laboratory so that you would gaze up as I did and be prostrate before it as I was and you would marvel as I do now.

Now surely you understand the meaning of my queer gift.

—S. Black

In 1908, Spencer Black entered negotiations with a New York publishing house, Sotsky and Son, for publication of his masterwork, The Codex Extinct Animalia. Only six copies were completed before Dr. Black withdrew the project and abruptly disappeared. The reasons for his sudden departure remain unknown.

Dr. Black had garnered many enemies during his career in the sciences, not the least of whom were the administration and colleagues of his former employer, the Academy of Medicine. Dr. Joab Holace, for example, never stopped attacking Black’s credibility and legitimacy. His articles were published in many well-known papers: London’s Royal Society of Surgeons Review in 1891, the New York Medical Journal in 1894, 1896, 1897, and again in 1908, with specific mention of Black’s book.

Dr. Spencer Quack is going to loft a fairy tale that can barely serve as adequate kindle for the fire. I have not read it, nor do I wish to. I am certain that the ink used to describe the creatures from his own madness is a waste of resources. His book will be nothing more than an extravagant and expensive joke the fool will play on himself.

—Joab A. Holace M.D., N.Y.C.M.

(The N.Y. Medical Journal, 1908)

After 1908, Alphonse continued alone in the strange practices of his father. In 1917, he was caught butchering small animals in a barn twenty-five miles north of Philadelphia; he was arrested and committed to a mental asylum. He remained there for eleven years, receiving only one visitor, in 1920: his younger brother Samuel. In 1929 the building burned down from a fire caused by lightning. During the storm, many of the patients escaped. Alphonse was among them.

From 1933 to 1947 Alphonse allegedly kept a private zoo, where he housed many of his own creations. He inherited his father’s fortune and also gained his own tremendous wealth by claiming to be able to restore youth and beauty for an astounding price. Nevertheless, little is known of Alphonse or his work. Like his father, he was extremely secretive.

As for Spencer Black, nothing is known of his whereabouts after 1908. There were no more public appearances; there