Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

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Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

- "The String of Pearls: A Romance" is the title of a fictional story first published as a penny dreadful serial from 1846–47. The main antagonist of the story is the infamous Sweeney Todd, "the Demon Barber of Fleet Street," who here makes his literary debut.
Todd is a barber who murders his customers and turns their remains into meat pies, sold at the pie shop of his partner in crime: Mrs. Lovett; Todd's barber shop is situated in Fleet Street, London, next to St. Dunstan's church, and is connected to Lovett's bakers shop in nearby Bell Yard by means of an underground passage. Todd dispatches his victims by pulling a lever while they are in his barber chair, which makes them fall backward down a revolving trapdoor, generally causing them to break their necks or skulls. In the event they are alive, he goes to the basement and "polishes them off" by slitting the victim's throat with his straight razor. Todd has a young assistant named Tobias Ragg.

James Malcolm Rymer

- James Malcolm Rymer was a British nineteenth century writer of penny dreadfuls, and is the co-author with Thomas Peckett Prest of both Varney the Vampire and The String of Pearls , in which the notorious villain Sweeney Todd makes his literary debut.

Thomas Peckett Prest

- Thomas Peckett Prest was a British hack writer, journalist and musician. He was a prolific producer of penny dreadfuls. He is now remembered as the co-creator of the fictional Sweeney Todd, the 'demon barber' immortalized in his The String of Pearls, as well as the co-author with Rymer of Varney the Vampire. He wrote under pseudonyms including Bos, a takeoff of Charles Dickens' own pen name, Boz. Before joining Edward Lloyd's publishing factory, Prest had made a name for himself as a talented musician and composer.