Sweeney Todd: The Barber of Fleet Street (1846-1847) is a penny
dreadful novel by British writers James Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett
Prest. Originally serialized in cheap volumes, the novel marks the debut
of Sweeney Todd, a villain whose story inspired Stephen Sondheim's
legendary musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
(1979), which won a Tony Award for Best Musical and an Olivier Award for
Best New Musical before serving as source material for Tim Burton's 2007
film of the same name.
In London in 1785, a young sailor named Lieutenant Thornhill goes
missing while on leave. Last seen on Fleet Street while entering the
barber shop of Sweeney Todd, his mysterious disappearance inspires
Colonel Jeffrey, a friend, to investigate. Discovering that Thornhill
was carrying with him a pearl necklace for Johanna Oakley, the lover of
a man lost at sea, Jeffrey questions the young girl. Disturbed by his
story, and moved by Thornhill's honorable intentions, Johanna offers her
help in his search. Suspicious of Todd, who has recently lost an
assistant to a local insane asylum, she dresses as a young boy and goes
to his barber shop to apply for the position. There, she begins to
uncover Todd's secret operation, whereby murdering his unsuspecting
patrons, he transports their bodies to Mrs. Lovett's shop to be turned
into cheap meat pies. Sweeney Todd: The Barber of Fleet Street is a
grisly penny dreadful novel, a quick-witted work of horror that has
inspired several successful adaptations.
With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript,
this edition of Sweeney Todd: The Barber of Fleet Street by James
Malcolm Rymer and Thomas Peckett Prest is a classic of British horror
fiction reimagined for modern readers.
