Sweeney Todd #353826

Sweeney Todd, also known as The String of Pearls; or, The Barber of Fleet Street, is the notorious nineteenth-century penny dreadful that introduced readers to one of the most infamous villains in popular literature: Sweeney Todd, the murderous barber of Fleet Street. Set in London in 1785, the story begins when a mysterious customer enters Todd’s sinister barber shop—and gradually draws the reader into a web of disappearances, murder, deception, imprisonment, and revenge. When the young sailor Mark Ingestrie vanishes, his beloved Johanna Oakley refuses to accept that he is dead and becomes entangled in the dark secrets surrounding Todd’s establishment. Meanwhile, Todd’s terrified apprentice Tobias Ragg discovers that his master is far more dangerous than the respectable barber he pretends to be, while the nearby pie shop operated by Mrs. Lovett becomes ominously connected to Todd’s crimes. As Johanna searches for the truth and Tobias struggles to escape his master’s control, Todd’s schemes grow increasingly ruthless, leading to a series of sensational adventures involving hidden chambers, false identities, abduction, imprisonment, and murder. First published serially in 1846–47, The String of Pearls established the enduring legend of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and remains a foundational work of Gothic sensation fiction and the Victorian penny-dreadful tradition.