Episode 5: Valentine Vox, Ventriloquist

Ii-Wey! I know you are probably asking yourself and me two questions: Who is Valentine Vox? And, in what way does a ventriloquist and mummies intersect? 

Our story begins in early 19^thcentury London when Henry Cockton entered into the world and took his place as the third of eight children. Little is known of his childhood or his educational background, however in 1839, the 32-year-old Cockton took quill to paper and penned The Life and Adventures of Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist, the story about a man who teaches himself ventriloquism and proceeds to use his new talent to engage in pranks when the opportunity presents itself. It was a popular series, and like other stories of the times, such as Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, this novel provided Cockton the venue to enlighten and educate his readers to the social issues surrounding asylums (this was the overarching theme of the story). Originally serialized in a monthly format, Robert Tyas published the collection in 1840, with illustrations by Thomas Onwhyn. 

It is in Chapter 15 where we’ll find our second answer. With a lengthy chapter title, “Valentine Visits the British Museum – Imparts Breath to Mennon and Raises a Voice from the Tomb,” you may have an inkling to the nature of the prank that our ventriloquist had the opportunity to orchestrate. Valentine describes the various displays he encounters when he enters the museum before arriving at the Gallery of Antiquities. He is soon conversing with two gentlemen and the three chat about some of the techniques employed by oracles to make it appear that statues are talking. To prove his point (to himself), Valentine throws his voice so it appears that Mennon is speaking the men. This first instance of ventriloquism foreshadows Valentine’s follow up prank in which he throws his voice into a closed sarcophagus, causing several patrons to believe that someone is trapped and alive in the coffin. Was it a mummy? Or a laborer who got trapped? When a group of workers are finally able to lift the sarcophagus lid, it is empty. 

Cockton’s story was published about a decade after the one of the earliest English mummy stories, the three-volume The Mummy!: Or a Tale of the Twenty-Second Century written by Jane Webb Loudon, although published as “Anon”. Loudon is believed to have been inspired by a public show of unwrapping a mummy in Piccadilly as well as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for her futuristic tale of a re-animated mummy with a fount of knowledge. Cockton may have been inspired to set his “mummy” story at the British Museum because during the 1820s and 1830s, the London museum was experiencing an influx of Egyptian artifacts, small and large, from a number of private collections the museum was purchasing as well as the historical objects the museum was receiving from Egyptologists in the field. Because there wasn’t actually a mummy, Cockton’s tale hasn’t been included in discussions about mummy literature and that is a shame because later stories would occasionally use this narrative plot device alluding to there being a mummy when in fact, there wasn’t one or one of the characters were pretending to be a mummy. 

The Life and Adventures of Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist may not have a mummy, but the story does have value in other ways. Cockton provides a tantalizing amount of suspense when a mummy is presumed in the displayed closed sarcophagus before the characters shift to believing that a laborer became trapped. Additionally, the description of frame holding up one of the other sarcophagus lids sounds similar to the photographic images of Howard Carter’s pully and wrenching system he used to lift Tutankhamun’s sarcophagus lid almost 100 years later. Most importantly, contemporary readers are given insight into what the museum was exhibiting around 1839-40. Cockton obviously researched the items on display and provides enough details that we can identify the artifacts he is describing. Although a fiction story, his account of the museum documents the period, but also some of the values at the time about the worth (or not) of antiquities. 

What happened to Cockton? According to the Wikipedia entry for him, he never found lasting success even though he wrote several novels. Sadly, he died fairly young and was buried in an unmarked grave. There were no obituary announcements to mark his passing. A manuscript of his life was written, but never published (housed at the British Museum, no less!). Regrettably, the value of his writing as a witness to early 19^thcentury London and as an early modern British literary writer are all but forgotten. The entire novel is available at Archive.org where you can also enjoy Thomas Onwhyn’s illustrations. You can order a public domain reprint at Amazon or find an original copy at Ebay or AbeBooks. 

Senebti!