Karl Tanzler von Cosel (1877-1952) was a German-born radiologist who actually did preserve a woman’s corpse and attempt to bring it back to life. This really is his autobiographical account of those events. To say that he was eccentric would be an understatement. He was clearly quite mad, although probably well-intentioned.
The Secret of Elena’s Tomb is partly a true story. A great deal of it is certainly true. He unquestionably believed that all of it was true.
Von Cosel lived for a time in Australia, was interned during the First World and later moved to the United States. In his youth he believed he was visited by the spirit of a long-dead ancestress. While living in Australia he believed he was given a glimpse of his future bride. In Florida he met a young Cuban woman named Elena. She was dying of tuberculosis. He tried to save her life with various treatments, some scientific and some very much in the realm of pseudoscience. He had a kind of mystical belief in the power of electricity.
He also built an aircraft. He intended that he and Elena would fly away in it to some remote South Pacific isle.
Elena died but he refused to believe that her death was final. He stole her body from its tomb and kept it with him for seven years, making various attempts to preserve the body and revivify it. Eventually he was arrested. He was certified as mentally competent to stand trial but no really serious charges could be brought against him and his obviously sincere belief that he had acted for the best counted in his favour and all charges against him were dropped after he had spent a very brief period behind bars. The case became a media sensation at the time. All of this really happened.
All of this is recounted in von Cosel’s story. I’m not giving away spoilers since his story opens with his release from prison so we know how the story is going to end. And the interest in his story is not in the events themselves but in his motivations and in his interpretations of the events.
All of this is pretty much true. But von Cosel truly believed that Elena was not really dead and that she talked with him and sang to him after her death. He also recounts various dreams. It’s clear that he believed that dreams were more than just dreams, that they were in some sense true. Perhaps more true than waking life.
Many years after his own death in 1952 sensational accusations of necrophilia were levelled against him but the evidence is dubious. In his own account it appears that he believed that he and Elena had some kind of real married life after her death but his inability to distinguish between reality, dreams, wishful thinking and his odd mix of pseudoscientific, esoteric and mystical beliefs makes it impossible to know exactly what form this strange imaginary married life took.
It’s obviously a very creepy and disturbing first-person account of madness and obsession but it’s also a weirdly moving love story. For Karl Tanzler von Cosel love really was something that never dies. It’s worth reading just for its historical curiosity value and for its strangeness.
Armchair Fiction have paired this book with Leroy Yerxa’s novella Witch of Blackfen Moor in one of their two-novel paperback editions.
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