Donovan's Brain

Dr. Patrick Cory funds private research into keeping brains alive outside the body with his wife's money, working alone in ways that should worry someone. When the plane of W. H. Donovan, a millionaire under federal investigation, crashes near Cory's home, the doctor can't save the man's life -- but he can, and does, extract the still-viable brain and suspend it in an oxygenated tank. The brain not only survives; it starts transmitting, and Cory finds himself writing in a hand that isn't his own, as Donovan's will seeps into his mind and takes hold of his actions from beyond death. Curt Siodmak's best-known novel, filmed several times.