The String of Pearls: The Original Tale of Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

by Thomas Preskett Prest

Read the book that sparked the legend. Look beyond the musical to the real tale of the demon barber of Fleet Street. The myth of Sweeny Todd has long been speculated to come from a true story and this novel, written at the height of the legend, is perhaps as close to the truth as it is possible to get. The original Sweeny Todd – A String of Pearls is a classic from 1846 that is set in the dark underbelly of London. Written as a series of Penny Dreadfuls by Thomas Preskett Press, the series has since been collected into a single novel that will have readers itching to find out the next dark twist. See the characters as you have never seen them before, the way they first appeared. A String of Pearls follows Sweeny Todd as he descends deeper and deeper into madness. Having murdered Johanna’s suitor, Sweeny sets in motion the events that lead to his downfall. Johanna sets out to track her fiancée down and in that process she will unearth a gruesome truth. Meanwhile Toby, Sweeny’s apprentice, will be driven mad by what he finds. Sweeny Todd’s dark agreement with Mrs Lovett and her sinister pie shop has stunned Victorian and modern audiences alike. This classic and brilliant novel will take you back through time and show you a past filled with tragedy and beauty as Johanna goes in search of her lost love. Johanna’s loyalty and bravery stand out all the more as she risks everything to find the demon barber’s secret. Todd is a brilliant character – both compelling and horrifying – who has drawn people again and again into his story. As suspicion grows and Todd becomes more manic and terrifying and Mrs Lovett grows more and more desperate, the two will drive each other further into darkness. Through the years this timeless tale has captured the imagination. The world over, A String of Pearls is a classic that went on to spawn both a hit musical and an Oscar-winning movie. Thomas Preskett Prest (1810-1859) was a British writer, journalist and musician. He was a prolific producer of penny dreadfuls. He wrote under several 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. Albion Press is an imprint of Endeavour Press, the UK's leading independent digital publisher. For more information on our titles please sign up to our newsletter at www.endeavourpress.com. Each week you will receive updates on free and discounted ebooks. Follow us on @EndeavourPress and on Facebook via We are always interested in hearing from our readers. Endeavour Press believes that the future is now.

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Classics, Mystery, English Literature

732 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 28, 2016

Reviews

[James McCormick · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great read.

A penny dreadful, published in serial form in Edward Lloyd's People's Periodical in 1846- 1847, and written by at least two separate writers (Prest no doubt writing the majority of it).

So, why did I like it so much? Mainly for the reasons one would usually criticise a literary work for.
Todd, unlike later incarnations, is no deep character study, a tortured, angst ridden character with whom we can understand and empathise with even if we can't condone his crimes. The demon barber of Fleet Street here is a pure psychopath, a stage villain, who (unlike Mrs Lovett) never once experiences the pangs of conscience in his murderous pursuit of wealth. Don't even look for a character arc.

I also enjoyed the overblown speeches, soliloquy-like asides, authorial addresses to the reader and pantomime scenes and the verbosity in which they are related.

A very enjoyable book but not one for literary snobs.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best penny dreadful ever! If you know the location (Fleet Street, Hen & Chicken Court, Inner Temple as I do) you feel at home with the book from page 1 on. You can't put this book down: the devilish barber, Big Ben, Johanna Oakley, Mark Ingestrie, Tobias Ragg, Mr Fogg, the madhouse and Mrs Lovett the pie maker. What a set of characters and what a rollercoaster ride of a read. It's almost like a computer game by Sid Meier. You definitely want to find out the secret of the barber's chair and why the pies taste that good... Absolute classic, absolute recommendation. One of the quickest reads of that era ever. Gosh that hack writer really could tell a tale. Suspense until the very last page!

[Kat · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting narrative

The book was not what I expected having seen the musical of the same name. All the elements are there but the characters are vastly different. I can see how this story would have worked as a weekly serial but it plods along in some places for that reason. The author fails, where Dickens and Dumas succeed, in pulling all the people and plot points together. Therefore Dickens and Dumas are famous writers and Prest is not. Prest also spoke to his reader in away that felt lazy. He needed to get back to a certain character so he said "now going too see Todd". If he had used the breaking of the fourth wall more cleverly or to give the narrator more character or credibility, this method may have worked. Not a bad read but not that great. One of the few cases the rewrite, Sweeny Todd: The Daemon Barber of Fleet Street, was better. Plus there was music and Angela Landsbury wielding a rolling pin.

[Hailey May · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good October read! The storyline in the book is very different from the musical, but I actually think I liked it better. I have to give the author credit for creativity. I was thinking about this book being a series of penny dreadfuls and how I can imagine readers being shocked by the ending of this book. I felt the suspense even though I knew the premise of the book. A crazy, but original tale.

[Laura-Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a huge fan of the Sondheim stage show & Victorian novels in general I really love A String of Pearls and have read it several times over. It’s a very quick and easy read providing you’ve got a grasp of the verbose style Victorian stories tended to be written in. It’s really interesting to see how the modern adaptions took this rather simple Penny Dreadful tale and span it into a deep and emotional story, as well as seeing the origins for some of the characters (for example, the character of Lucy, Sweeney’s wife in the story most of us know and love, is Mrs. Lovett’s shop girl in the book, and mentioned only in passing). I’d highly recommend checking out the source material if you’re a lover of the musical/play. Best of all, the story is crammed with constant murder & cannibalism puns!

[miuccia · Rating 5 out of 5]

i love this so much

as a longtime fan of the musical, it was extremely interesting to read thinking of hugo wheeler's process in adapting it to write the book (and sondheim's absolute genius, of course) in a way that made more sense to a stage adaptation - and yet, even though the source material is very different, tonally it's the same and all the story beats are there

i kept thinking this must have been victorians' Laura Palmer; *we* know about the entire pie cannibalism situation because the musical is such a classic, but the way the book builds the mystery that *something* is wrong but is never clear about what it is until the very end

also i love how funny victorians are. they're so obsessed with death but at the same time so sarcastic

[Vicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Along with "Varney the Vampire", the Sweeney Todd saga is the most famous of the penny dreadfuls of the Victorian era. It's got everything to keep you up at night: murder, unjust imprisonment, a madhouse, and lost love -- not to mention cannibalism. The author is actually unknown; at a guess, it has been attributed to Thomas Peckett Prest or James Malcolm Rymer.

"The String of Pearls", as it was originally titled, was published anonymously in serial form in 1846. Its age shows in the over elaborate writing style of the era. For the modern reader, it can be a little frustrating to wade through all the excess verbiage. It is, nevertheless , an interesting, albeit disturbing, read.

It was turned into a stage melodrama, which was quite successful . A version of this play was filmed in 1936, starring the king of melodrama villains, Tod Slaughter. It's not bad, but, like most melodrama, a little silly at times. More famous is the Sondheim musical, which alters the plot a bit.
In the musical, Sweeney Todd is given a tragic past, his motive revenge. (The original character is driven by pure greed.). I highly recommend the 1982 film of this play, starring George Hearn and the incomparable Angela Lansbury.

As for the book itself, I hesitate to recommend it to the casual reader, but it may be of interest to students of era, or those interested in the history of horror.

[G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has it all: serial killers, precious jewelry, barbers, child endangerment, and cannibalism. With all that, how could this not be a classic. I wouldn’t say this book was scary as much as just really unnerving. That is part of the reason why I loved it. Out of all the gothic horror stories I have read, this is by far the spookiest. Like I said, it wasn’t that scary, but still. As is the trend with these types of books, it felt longer than it needed to be. It was still really entertaining, but it definitely got more interesting near the end. One thing that this book did that I really enjoyed was the way it had several different stories that all got interwoven by the end. You can really tell that the author thought out every detail. And I wasn’t left with a lot of questions, which one may expect from a plot as detailed as this one. Overall, this was one of my favorite gothic novels. I highly recommend.

Warnings: Death, murder, and cannibalism (is that a trigger?)

[Andie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me awhile to get into this novel (it is Victorian). Sweeney Todd is one of my favorite musicals and I have wanted to read this for awhile but it was rather laborious. They made a lot of good cuts and changes to create the musical. In the novel version, Sweeney is a straight up villain, no backstory is given to justify his murderous ways, Johanna is simply the daughter of a spectacle maker and in love with a sailor she has not seen in two years, Mr. Fogg has a more devious role at the mad house, and the judge does not even exist. I'm glad I read it, but the plot was not as compelling as the musical's plot.

[Kirsten Simkiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow. Having had no prior exposure to this story aside from the 2007 Johnny Depp musical, reading this was an experience and a half. I came in expecting one thing and got something ENTIRELY different. That said, it wasn't a bad story. I did enjoy it, despite being thrown by how off different it was. Conceptually, the musical gets a lot of things right. However, it gets everything plot wise totally wrong. I really loved how Sweeney himself is described as this visually ugly and frightening man with an unearthly laugh and a mass of hair with all his tools in it. If given the opportunity, I likely would not read this again but it was worth reading once.

[Jessica Mather · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really fun read. Im not one for classics, because of ‘ye old language’ but I immersion read this. The combination made for a very entertaining time.
I found that the book could have been about 50 pages shorter. There were many monologues and a few scenes that i thought weren’t necessary, or could have been trimmed.
In terms of formatting, there were Several errors where paragraphs started in the middle of sentences, fonts changed for a couple of letters, numbers replaced letters a few times as well. The more the story went on, the more i saw these errors.

That being said, i would read it again. Probably same time next year.

[Yancy Craft · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts of the book are really enjoyable and a good read, but it is l o o o o o o o o n n n g. And the last third of the book can be skimmed at about a line or two per page without losing anything. Good suspense is often spoiled by obtrusive Victorian filler and pseudo witty dialogue or slapstick. Some clever, but gets old fast. You may read for days and be surprised you are only 5% of the way through the book. Not a terrible loss of time spent considering the downstream influence of the story, but don’t be afraid to skim. Or just read it the way it was first presented, what, a chapter or two a week for a year?

[Adele · Rating 2 out of 5]

This has the makings of a fairly decent novella, but as it is, it’s a lot of drivel for a little plot. I completely understand why this was only published as a novel so recently, I just wish that it had been edited to remove the unnecessary and boorish characters that populate the central parts of the book. To my count we have at least 4 lengthy chapters that introduce characters who have absolutely no bearing on the plot whatsoever, and who never appear again.
The central story of Todd and Johanna just about saves this from one star.

[Tim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really picks up at the end, but this is some of the most bizarre writing I have ever encountered. Prest has a strange way of beating around the bush in quite literally every sentence he writes. Several paragraphs even could easily be condensed down to a single sentence or two.

Also very interesting to see how Sondheim/Wheeler took these characters and made basically a completely original story (only the meat pie storyline is essentially the same).

Very glad I didn't read the 700-page edition, however, that's for sure

[Jools Holmquist · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a good Victorian story, especially when it involves meat pie and a murderous barber. It was a fun quick listen, and a very well done radio drama of an audiobook.

Sweeney Todd is without remorse, morals, or a conscience and yet he is somehow likable. Mrs. Lovett has some scruples but not enough to stop her profitable business.

Johanna is an innocent, her friend reads too many novels.

It’s a rare book that I find characters with few redeeming qualities this interesting.

Should go on my yearly October reading list.

[N.R.P. Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story is itself legend now but the writing is certainly very dated and not one that would catch on if tried out now. The tale is certainly a good one but if a precis were written, missing some of the 'flowery' over description, it would still be a tale good enough to again be a best seller. If you are able to read around the flowery descriptive bits it is still a good tale. Only three stars because of the over flowery descriptions.

[Jana Giles · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good but not great, the original tale of Sweeney Todd. Most effective as a commentary on industrial England as cannibalistic economy as well as indictment of the condition of insane asylums at the time.

[Andrew kutz · Rating 4 out of 5]

So I love the musical of Sweeney Todd, the Demon, Barber of Fleet Street, so I really did enjoy this books. It was a lot different from the musical, and the writing was hard to read sometimes, but it still has the same charm that the musical has

[Jason Keller Jr · Rating 2 out of 5]

I always wanted to know what the hub bun surrounding Sweeney Todd was all about. Felt like reading a classic. There’s some good parts to this. I kind of liked the escape. Kinda over rated and not what I was hoping for. Don’t recommend.

[Tessanee W · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very long-winded, but it built suspense well. it's meant to be quite fast-paced, but i got hung up on ye olde englishe :/ I would recommend sparingly, but overall a nice book.

3/5 might read again but probably won't
(but the covers really pretty so i'm keeping the book :>)

[JoAnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ug...

[Aman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy shaving for a penny,
As good as you will find any

[Ada · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was everything I could have hoped for from a Victorian novel. It was perfectly dark and delicious (lol).

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I knew the name Sweeny Todd, I knew nothing about the story. It was interesting and enjoyable.

[Ashley Larm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this was a fun read. I will say that the first half of the book is very slow in presenting background information and the character of Johanna is very dry and boring; though necessary to the story line and very prominent in the first half. I was of course comparing the book to the movie/musical which I have seen and it is very different. Maybe it was because I knew the punchline of the book because of the movie, but it was very slow and didn't include as much detail as I would have liked at times. The book was very well written though and utilized great descriptions and characterization that was really the driving force of this book. Even if you hadn't seen the movie or musical, the plot wasn't very surprising, but the characters and their backgrounds and interactions were really the biggest strengths of the story in my opinion. It was a fun read, but I don't think that I will ever find myself picking it up again in the future.

[Penny Ayotte · Rating 1 out of 5]

Save yourself, see the movie

I have seen neither the movie or the musical so there were no expectations going in. I was, however, familiar with the story as most are. I hated giving this one star, but there was just so much I didnt like about it. There was absolutely no back story given on Todd, he was already murdering people in the first chapter and we have no idea what has driven him to this point. Loveitt is mentioned twice, Johanna is a twit...well you get the idea. Perhaps it's because it was originally written as serial, with different authors over a long period of time that it just made for a very lackluster book.

[George Richard · Rating 1 out of 5]

I feel like I may be the first person to finish this book in 50 years, although whoever wrote the musical probably did and wisely ditched much of it. I unfortunately read the book as part of a club activity and then we watched Sweeny Todd with Johnny Depp. At least 12 hours of my life wasted.

[Joao · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good! Read it horrific but funny black humour and crime! Great mysteries until the end!

[Makenna Matos · Rating 3 out of 5]

I suggest speed-reading through this book to get the most out of it. It helped to bypass the excessive amount of pros.