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The String of Pearls
The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance (alternatively titled The Sailor's Gift) is a story first published as a penny dreadful serial from 1846 to 1847. The main character of the story is Sweeney Todd, "the Demon Barber of Fleet Street". The story was the character's first literary appearance.
Todd is a barber who murders his customers and gives their corpses to Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime, who bakes their flesh into meat pies. His barber shop is situated in Fleet Street, London, next to St. Dunstan's church, and is connected to Lovett's pie shop in nearby Bell Yard by means of an underground passage. Todd kills his victims by pulling a lever while they are in his barber chair, which makes them fall backward through a revolving trapdoor and generally causes them to break their necks or skulls on the cellar floor below. If the victims are still alive, he goes to the basement and "polishes them off" by slitting their throats with his straight razor.
The story is set in London during the year 1785. The plot concerns the strange disappearance of a sailor named Lieutenant Thornhill, last seen entering Sweeney Todd's establishment on Fleet Street. Thornhill was bearing a gift of a string of pearls to a girl named Johanna Oakley on behalf of her missing lover, Mark Ingestrie, who is presumed lost at sea. One of Thornhill's seafaring friends, Colonel Jeffrey, is alerted to the disappearance of Thornhill by his faithful dog, Hector, and investigates his whereabouts. He is joined by Johanna, who wants to know what happened to Mark.
Johanna's suspicions of Sweeney Todd's involvement cause her to disguise herself as a boy and become Todd's employee after his last assistant, a young boy named Tobias Ragg, has been incarcerated in a madhouse for accusing Todd of murder. Soon, after Todd has dismembered the corpses of his victims, Mrs. Lovett creates her meat pies from leftover flesh. While the bodies are burning in the oven, a ghastly and intolerable smell reeks from the pie shop chimney. Eventually, the extent of Todd's activities is uncovered when the dismembered remains of hundreds of his victims are discovered in the crypt underneath St. Dunstan's church. Meanwhile, Mark, who has been imprisoned in the cellar beneath the pie shop and made to work as the cook, escapes via the lift used to bring the pies up from the cellar into the pie shop. Here he makes the following startling announcement to the customers of that establishment:
Mrs. Lovett is then poisoned by Sweeney Todd, who is subsequently apprehended and hanged. Johanna marries Mark.
The String of Pearls: A Romance was published in 18 weekly parts, in Edward Lloyd's The People's Periodical and Family Library, issues 7–24, 21 November 1846 to 20 March 1847. It is frequently attributed to Thomas Peckett Prest, but has been more recently been reassigned to James Malcolm Rymer; other names such as E.P Hingston have also been suggested. E.P. Hingston, at the time, was a resident of London. It is written like so many of his other works. E.P. Hingston at the time of this writing was looking for a way to make money until he set off on one of his new escapades. The story was then published in book form in 1850 as "The String of Pearls", subtitled "The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance". This expanded version of the story was 732 pages long, and its conclusion differs greatly from that of the original serial publication: Todd escapes from prison after being sentenced to death but, after many further adventures, is finally shot dead while fleeing from the authorities. In later years, there were many different literary, stage and eventually movie adaptations which renamed, further expanded and often drastically altered the original story.
A scholarly, annotated edition of The String of Pearls was published in 2007 by the Oxford University Press with the title Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, edited by Robert Mack.
Industrialisation is a theme that contributes to the story. Sweeney Todd owns a barber shop in the middle of one of the busiest industrial parts of the growing city of London. Industrialism resulted in an increasing crime rate, which was exploited by the penny dreadful stories.
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The String of Pearls
The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance (alternatively titled The Sailor's Gift) is a story first published as a penny dreadful serial from 1846 to 1847. The main character of the story is Sweeney Todd, "the Demon Barber of Fleet Street". The story was the character's first literary appearance.
Todd is a barber who murders his customers and gives their corpses to Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime, who bakes their flesh into meat pies. His barber shop is situated in Fleet Street, London, next to St. Dunstan's church, and is connected to Lovett's pie shop in nearby Bell Yard by means of an underground passage. Todd kills his victims by pulling a lever while they are in his barber chair, which makes them fall backward through a revolving trapdoor and generally causes them to break their necks or skulls on the cellar floor below. If the victims are still alive, he goes to the basement and "polishes them off" by slitting their throats with his straight razor.
The story is set in London during the year 1785. The plot concerns the strange disappearance of a sailor named Lieutenant Thornhill, last seen entering Sweeney Todd's establishment on Fleet Street. Thornhill was bearing a gift of a string of pearls to a girl named Johanna Oakley on behalf of her missing lover, Mark Ingestrie, who is presumed lost at sea. One of Thornhill's seafaring friends, Colonel Jeffrey, is alerted to the disappearance of Thornhill by his faithful dog, Hector, and investigates his whereabouts. He is joined by Johanna, who wants to know what happened to Mark.
Johanna's suspicions of Sweeney Todd's involvement cause her to disguise herself as a boy and become Todd's employee after his last assistant, a young boy named Tobias Ragg, has been incarcerated in a madhouse for accusing Todd of murder. Soon, after Todd has dismembered the corpses of his victims, Mrs. Lovett creates her meat pies from leftover flesh. While the bodies are burning in the oven, a ghastly and intolerable smell reeks from the pie shop chimney. Eventually, the extent of Todd's activities is uncovered when the dismembered remains of hundreds of his victims are discovered in the crypt underneath St. Dunstan's church. Meanwhile, Mark, who has been imprisoned in the cellar beneath the pie shop and made to work as the cook, escapes via the lift used to bring the pies up from the cellar into the pie shop. Here he makes the following startling announcement to the customers of that establishment:
Mrs. Lovett is then poisoned by Sweeney Todd, who is subsequently apprehended and hanged. Johanna marries Mark.
The String of Pearls: A Romance was published in 18 weekly parts, in Edward Lloyd's The People's Periodical and Family Library, issues 7–24, 21 November 1846 to 20 March 1847. It is frequently attributed to Thomas Peckett Prest, but has been more recently been reassigned to James Malcolm Rymer; other names such as E.P Hingston have also been suggested. E.P. Hingston, at the time, was a resident of London. It is written like so many of his other works. E.P. Hingston at the time of this writing was looking for a way to make money until he set off on one of his new escapades. The story was then published in book form in 1850 as "The String of Pearls", subtitled "The Barber of Fleet Street. A Domestic Romance". This expanded version of the story was 732 pages long, and its conclusion differs greatly from that of the original serial publication: Todd escapes from prison after being sentenced to death but, after many further adventures, is finally shot dead while fleeing from the authorities. In later years, there were many different literary, stage and eventually movie adaptations which renamed, further expanded and often drastically altered the original story.
A scholarly, annotated edition of The String of Pearls was published in 2007 by the Oxford University Press with the title Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, edited by Robert Mack.
Industrialisation is a theme that contributes to the story. Sweeney Todd owns a barber shop in the middle of one of the busiest industrial parts of the growing city of London. Industrialism resulted in an increasing crime rate, which was exploited by the penny dreadful stories.