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The Two: The Story of the Original Siamese Twins
Hardcover book with dust jacket is the story of Chang and Eng, co-joined Siamese twins in the 19th century.Bibliography, index. 360 pages. Illustrated.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published March 15, 1978
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Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews
January 8, 2021
The Two: A Biography of the Original Siamese Twins
By: Irving Wallace, Amy Wallace
Narrated by: Michael Adashefski
This is a book I received free from Audioboom and the review is voluntary. I suppose a great deal of people are fascinated with these two people even today, I know I am. They were attached yet lived a long productive life but that's about the extent of my knowledge. This book really filled in lots of gaps. It follows the twins from birth until after death. Their travels, what they learned on their trips, how they made a living, their wives, their in-laws, how they survived living with a large household of children and two wives (two houses and rules!), things about their children, and more.
It also went into how they died, what happened and when. What happened to the body and more.
It also told about each twins personality as they were growing up, how it changed. What they could do even attached to each other that astonished others.
I found this a very personable look into their lives and not a book of facts about them. I came away from this feeling glad I had a glimpse into their lives, even if it was only through a window of the past. I felt I knew them a little. They weren't just a freek show oddity but a pair of intelligent, loving, family men that contributed to their community and handled a difficult lifelong situation far better than I could ever dream of.
By: Irving Wallace, Amy Wallace
Narrated by: Michael Adashefski
This is a book I received free from Audioboom and the review is voluntary. I suppose a great deal of people are fascinated with these two people even today, I know I am. They were attached yet lived a long productive life but that's about the extent of my knowledge. This book really filled in lots of gaps. It follows the twins from birth until after death. Their travels, what they learned on their trips, how they made a living, their wives, their in-laws, how they survived living with a large household of children and two wives (two houses and rules!), things about their children, and more.
It also went into how they died, what happened and when. What happened to the body and more.
It also told about each twins personality as they were growing up, how it changed. What they could do even attached to each other that astonished others.
I found this a very personable look into their lives and not a book of facts about them. I came away from this feeling glad I had a glimpse into their lives, even if it was only through a window of the past. I felt I knew them a little. They weren't just a freek show oddity but a pair of intelligent, loving, family men that contributed to their community and handled a difficult lifelong situation far better than I could ever dream of.
February 24, 2017
Oh so dull -- which is great if you're trying to get drowsy enough for sleep but sucks if you want to be entertained. This book relies heavily on contemporary sources and chooses to quote them extensively (including all punctuation, spelling and grammatical errors) instead of just giving a summary. It does try to liven things up by imagining what the sex life of the Siamese Twins was like (they had 20 or so kids, after all) but even that is more embarrassing than anything else.
Has a lot of photos -- including those people who played a minuscule part of the Twin's lives, such as a photographer who took a famous image of them in their old age.
Does end on a sublime note -- but it's a hell of a long ride to get to that sublime bit.
Has a lot of photos -- including those people who played a minuscule part of the Twin's lives, such as a photographer who took a famous image of them in their old age.
Does end on a sublime note -- but it's a hell of a long ride to get to that sublime bit.
November 12, 2008
So, I was watching this show on TLC about the Mutter museum in Philly, which I want to go to even though it's super creepy. http://www.collphyphil.org/mutter.asp Check it out.
Anyway, they were showing the death mask of the Siamese twins and discussing them, and how they became famous and then settled down married two sisters and had 21 children! I was transfixed. So off to the local library to find out about them. This book was extremely informative and detailed, almost too much so. Did you know that in all of recorded history (as of the printing of my book) there had only been 300 total cases of conjoined twins living more than a few days? The Siamese twins lived 60 plus years and this was in the 1800's...it is all fascinating. However do not read this book if you just want to find out how they had sex...which was everyone's question to me, because no one knows really. They didn't talk about that stuff then.....
Anyway, they were showing the death mask of the Siamese twins and discussing them, and how they became famous and then settled down married two sisters and had 21 children! I was transfixed. So off to the local library to find out about them. This book was extremely informative and detailed, almost too much so. Did you know that in all of recorded history (as of the printing of my book) there had only been 300 total cases of conjoined twins living more than a few days? The Siamese twins lived 60 plus years and this was in the 1800's...it is all fascinating. However do not read this book if you just want to find out how they had sex...which was everyone's question to me, because no one knows really. They didn't talk about that stuff then.....
October 19, 2010
I was led to this one by reading about Chang and Eng in A.J. Jacob's "The Know-It-All". Surprisingly, I had no idea that the original Siamese twins spent the last part of their lives married to sisters and living in Mt. Airy, NC. I believe this book was published in the mid to late 1970's... it was definitely dated and went a bit more in-depth than was really needed. Still, this was an interesting read on the history of two very unique individuals.
October 14, 2025
The beginning chapters and end chapters are extremely interesting, but it lost me in the middle as not a lot was going on, but still a fascinating read!
Their birth and childhood was interesting and how they were initially put into freak shows and went on tour. The chapters about the tours were very repetitive and not as enthralling as you'd expect. After that they became farmers and eventually persuaded some local sisters to marry them, given their awkward body connection, this part of their life was intriguing, they managed to have 21 children altogether! In their later married years they struggled the most with their connectedness and tried to solve it by moving their wives and children into separate houses and spending 3 days at each house.
They were studied by many doctors around the world and I really enjoyed reading about their theories about whether they could be separated or not and what the band of tissue between them might contain.
Their death was quite chilling reading and the fact that they had to hide the bodies for so long so they weren't stolen for display. Reading about the findings of the autopsy was interesting, their livers were connected through the band. At the time it was believed Eng died simply of terror, believing since his brother was dead he would die too, however he most likely died of blood loss, his blood circulated into his dead twin and wasn't pumped back again. According to the internet today, they could have easily and safely been separated.
I also enjoyed the diary entries and letters written by one of their daughters, she had a great writing style, I was sad to learn she passed at a young age, I was hoping she might have written a book herself. There's also a chapter about all the conjoined twins that survived after Chang and Eng, it made me want to find books about all of them, weirdly they almost always seemed to be girls.
All in all it's a good book about a very unique pair of brothers, I skimmed through the middle but it's very much worth reading!
Their birth and childhood was interesting and how they were initially put into freak shows and went on tour. The chapters about the tours were very repetitive and not as enthralling as you'd expect. After that they became farmers and eventually persuaded some local sisters to marry them, given their awkward body connection, this part of their life was intriguing, they managed to have 21 children altogether! In their later married years they struggled the most with their connectedness and tried to solve it by moving their wives and children into separate houses and spending 3 days at each house.
They were studied by many doctors around the world and I really enjoyed reading about their theories about whether they could be separated or not and what the band of tissue between them might contain.
Their death was quite chilling reading and the fact that they had to hide the bodies for so long so they weren't stolen for display. Reading about the findings of the autopsy was interesting, their livers were connected through the band. At the time it was believed Eng died simply of terror, believing since his brother was dead he would die too, however he most likely died of blood loss, his blood circulated into his dead twin and wasn't pumped back again. According to the internet today, they could have easily and safely been separated.
I also enjoyed the diary entries and letters written by one of their daughters, she had a great writing style, I was sad to learn she passed at a young age, I was hoping she might have written a book herself. There's also a chapter about all the conjoined twins that survived after Chang and Eng, it made me want to find books about all of them, weirdly they almost always seemed to be girls.
All in all it's a good book about a very unique pair of brothers, I skimmed through the middle but it's very much worth reading!
October 9, 2020
I first owned this book so long ago in paperback (1980?) that I see now paper copies aren't even available here on Amazon anymore. When we were traveling in North Carolina recently, we had a chance to go into the Andy Griffith Museum in Mt. Airy, and right next door is an exhibit on the Siamese Twins you can visit with the same ticket. Seeing the exhibit reminded me of this book, so I read it.
I have read that Irving Wallace, who wrote this book with his daughter, Amy, does a tremendous amount of research for his books, even his novels. And this biography of Chang and Eng certainly shows the amount of research they performed. It is a very detailed and meticulous account of their lives, from their birth in Siam (Turkey) to their tragic deaths at age 63 (tragic because one of them was more healthy but died when his brother did, and because they wanted to be separated later in life).
You will read about their early life, where they were fortunate to have a mother who didn't think of them as monsters or bad omens, as many parents would have. Then their discovery by their first manager, and on through their careers as a paid exhibit until they settled down in North Carolina as slave-owning, gentlemen farmers.
The authors make use of many sources: letters, diaries, newspaper articles, and on and on. Like I said, it is very detailed. The only time I thought there was too much information was on the occasions when they had no sources about a place they were visiting. For example, I think St. Petersburg, Russia was a place when there were no direct letters or journals to draw from, so the authors took a quote from some unrelated person's journal and said, this is what the Twins might have seen there. I would rather see everything through their eyes, if possible, and not at all otherwise. But this didn't happen often, so it didn't detract much at all from my interest in the story.
I know there is a newer book out on the Siamese Twins, and I plan to read it. It will be interesting to get a modern author's take on their lives, as well as with the advances in science and what we know about conjoined twins and their chances of survival upon being separated. But I am glad I read this older book first and I highly recomme
I have read that Irving Wallace, who wrote this book with his daughter, Amy, does a tremendous amount of research for his books, even his novels. And this biography of Chang and Eng certainly shows the amount of research they performed. It is a very detailed and meticulous account of their lives, from their birth in Siam (Turkey) to their tragic deaths at age 63 (tragic because one of them was more healthy but died when his brother did, and because they wanted to be separated later in life).
You will read about their early life, where they were fortunate to have a mother who didn't think of them as monsters or bad omens, as many parents would have. Then their discovery by their first manager, and on through their careers as a paid exhibit until they settled down in North Carolina as slave-owning, gentlemen farmers.
The authors make use of many sources: letters, diaries, newspaper articles, and on and on. Like I said, it is very detailed. The only time I thought there was too much information was on the occasions when they had no sources about a place they were visiting. For example, I think St. Petersburg, Russia was a place when there were no direct letters or journals to draw from, so the authors took a quote from some unrelated person's journal and said, this is what the Twins might have seen there. I would rather see everything through their eyes, if possible, and not at all otherwise. But this didn't happen often, so it didn't detract much at all from my interest in the story.
I know there is a newer book out on the Siamese Twins, and I plan to read it. It will be interesting to get a modern author's take on their lives, as well as with the advances in science and what we know about conjoined twins and their chances of survival upon being separated. But I am glad I read this older book first and I highly recomme
May 12, 2019
If 1/2 stars were an option I would give the book 2 1/2 stars. The story of Chang and Eng is fascinating, but the book borders on boring, and the authors put in so many quotes, letters and newspaper snippets, it gets distracting...and many did not add to or progress the story. Eventually I skipped them altogether. A book worth reading, but it's not a page turner.
May 24, 2020
Audible:A very interesting and informative book.It tells the history of other twins that lived,but non were so spectaculor as these men.Michael Adashefski gave a fine performance in sideshow barker style.I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.'
August 20, 2019
Read this years ago...
November 30, 2009
One of my last AABB book swap finds, I took forever to decide to read it because it has a musty, falling-apart book jacket that I thought I would lose if I carried it around much. I was right, but it's not in terrible condition...
I've always been kind of fascinated by conjoined twins, so reading about the original Siamese Twins was pretty interesting. The story encompasses a lot of topics actually - not just conjoined twins but also Siam/Thailand in the 19th century, the vaudeville circuit, and a bit about the Civil War.
I found the book to be a little slow at times, particularly in its coverage of the melodrama of the Twins early management and the later melodrama of the marital situation, but it was all worth reading. The minutia of life as a conjoined twin was covered a bit less than I expected, mostly because the Twins lived in a time when tell-all stories weren't really as... graphic as they would be now. Still, it seemed that the brothers were quite willing to share their lives with the audience - at least when they were younger - and their openness is pretty impressive when you consider the attitudes many people have about "freaks". I found their later life to be amazing - though it made for somewhat boring reading - simply because of the acceptance of their unusual family in a small Southern community.
The book wasn't can't-put-it-down engrossing, but it got a 4th star for being about an unusual subject and covering so much detail. Kind of a weird read, but unique enough to be entirely worth the experience.
I've always been kind of fascinated by conjoined twins, so reading about the original Siamese Twins was pretty interesting. The story encompasses a lot of topics actually - not just conjoined twins but also Siam/Thailand in the 19th century, the vaudeville circuit, and a bit about the Civil War.
I found the book to be a little slow at times, particularly in its coverage of the melodrama of the Twins early management and the later melodrama of the marital situation, but it was all worth reading. The minutia of life as a conjoined twin was covered a bit less than I expected, mostly because the Twins lived in a time when tell-all stories weren't really as... graphic as they would be now. Still, it seemed that the brothers were quite willing to share their lives with the audience - at least when they were younger - and their openness is pretty impressive when you consider the attitudes many people have about "freaks". I found their later life to be amazing - though it made for somewhat boring reading - simply because of the acceptance of their unusual family in a small Southern community.
The book wasn't can't-put-it-down engrossing, but it got a 4th star for being about an unusual subject and covering so much detail. Kind of a weird read, but unique enough to be entirely worth the experience.
October 7, 2011
Chang and Eng Bunker's lives were absolutely fascinating. They were probably the first truly famous Asian-Americans in America. Successful and intelligent, they would be on tv shows like "The View" and "Oprah" if they were alive today. (Although if they were alive today, they would have been separated at birth. They medical know-how to do so did not exist during their lifetime.)
I would give this book three and a half stars if possible. It is a very factual biography, relying a lot on letters and that sort of thing. The first half of the book is a little boring. The book gets quite interesting once the twins settle down and get married. The book tries to answer questions like: How did they have sex? How did they treat their slaves? How did they get along with each other? Did they want to be separated? So basically I ended up really liking it.
I googled for more info and discovered that somebody has written a different book which is a fictionalized account of their life. I don't think it sounds like a very accurate book, because the author says they would have died if they had stayed in Siam. (No, they wouldn't have. They were very much alive and successful there.) He also says that Chang was the dim-witted one. (According to "The Two", the twins had different personalities, but both twins seemed intelligent.)
So I would recommend this factual biography over a fictionalized novel. The truth is very interesting.
There are photos at the end of the book.
I would give this book three and a half stars if possible. It is a very factual biography, relying a lot on letters and that sort of thing. The first half of the book is a little boring. The book gets quite interesting once the twins settle down and get married. The book tries to answer questions like: How did they have sex? How did they treat their slaves? How did they get along with each other? Did they want to be separated? So basically I ended up really liking it.
I googled for more info and discovered that somebody has written a different book which is a fictionalized account of their life. I don't think it sounds like a very accurate book, because the author says they would have died if they had stayed in Siam. (No, they wouldn't have. They were very much alive and successful there.) He also says that Chang was the dim-witted one. (According to "The Two", the twins had different personalities, but both twins seemed intelligent.)
So I would recommend this factual biography over a fictionalized novel. The truth is very interesting.
There are photos at the end of the book.
July 4, 2015
The subject matter was very interesting, but the execution was slow and tedious. The book was about three times as long as it needed to be. Most of that extra space was devoted to long quotations that were only tangentially related to the topic at hand (the most maddening, to me, were passages describing impressions of a city given by someone with no ties at all to the twins; the fact that the twins had passed through that city was justification enough).
The factual highlights include how entrepreneurial and athletic the twins were, how many years they toured (but rarely as part of circus-like freak show), how many children they had, how thoroughly Southern they were (they owned slaves, and they had sons that fought for the Confederacy), and their method for sharing time between their families.
my favorite quote: "A Herald Man at the Hyphenated Brethren's Home"
The factual highlights include how entrepreneurial and athletic the twins were, how many years they toured (but rarely as part of circus-like freak show), how many children they had, how thoroughly Southern they were (they owned slaves, and they had sons that fought for the Confederacy), and their method for sharing time between their families.
my favorite quote: "A Herald Man at the Hyphenated Brethren's Home"
March 13, 2017
Very thorough and entertaining.Ultimately poignant as they make their way through life never being alone even when married.This biography uses contemporary accounts in newspapers,letters and diaries and later information to give as full a picture as possible of their early years,their travels and careers,their personalities and characters etc Interspersed is information about early and developing America so a rounded picture of their life and times is shown.Amazing to get a brief survey of what happened to their children too.Recommended.
February 18, 2011
An excellent read from page one. Very-well written as you almost feel like you personally know Chang and Eng and could say, "yeah, I'd like to hang out with them." I was very pleased that I found this book on my mom's bookshelf and was even more suprised that I had known my mother had this book for over 30 years and I had never read it! I wish I had read it sooner, but I am glad that I did. A great book that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys a well-written and relateable biography.
April 18, 2011
This was a fascinating book and rich with 19th Century U.S. history. I thought Irving and Amy Wallace (father/daughter) did a masterful job in researching the lives of these Siamese twins. Aside from their "disability" that draws one's interest, they were remarkable men and I think would have been wonderful to have as friends. I do question, though, how successful their marriages were. What they accomplished in their rather short lifetime is remarkable.
February 27, 2012
I found 5 boxes of old books in storage. This is a book about the original Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng Bunker. I gave it to my Dad in 1983 because of his interest in their story. I read it for the first time this week and found it very interesting. What a challenging life they had in their co-joined state. They made the most of it and managed to live productive and mostly happy lives in spite of their circumstances.
November 4, 2013
This is a biography about the original “Siamese Twins” Chang and Eng. The subject matter is really fascinating to learn about; how they lived day to day being joined at the abdomen. I found it even more interesting that they each married and had 20+ children between them. The books itself was a little dry, and I found myself skimming through parts because it just became so monotonous. Even so, I’m glad I read it and could learn a little more about these brothers.
October 6, 2016
This was a interesting book, though as others have pointed, has long passages that are seemingly unnecessary information. Most fascinating to me was the others relationship with each other, the fact they rarely spoke to one another and, when, writing letters referred to themselves as "I" . I love the Book of Lists, by the same authors, they have a unique ability to make you want to spend the rest of your life researching some obscure topic based on a single sentence they wrote.
July 1, 2007
what I want to be when I grow up: carolina gentleman farmer ex-sideshow attraction father husband siamese twins
February 6, 2008
Very interesting
October 30, 2008
North Carolina represent! Like much of Amy Wallace's work this is T.A.W.D.R.Y. Either you love that or you don't.
April 6, 2009
Very detailed look at the lives of Eng and Chang Bunker.
May 2, 2011
This book was very interesting, and the authors did a great job of placing the brothers in time, with references of the people and events around them. Bizarre and incredible true story.
June 14, 2011
This is the story of Chang and Eng Bunker, the story of the Siamese twins. A very good book. I thought both of the Wallaces did a fine job with this delicate subject. 616.043 in Dewey
June 13, 2012
really interesting, the even got married, when one got drunk the other felt it to a lesser extent!
May 13, 2013
Amazing story, taken from the huge amount of published material and the twins (and thier family and friends)own correspondence.
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews