Sweeney Todd
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"These penny romances were not vicious, though morbidly exciting; one called "Sweeney Todd; or, the String of Pearls," related how a certain barber in Fleet Street cut the throats of his customers, and then sunk them down a trap to a kitchen, where they were made into, and whence they issued, as mutton-pies!"--Modern Men of Letters Honestly Criticised (1870) by James Hain Friswell "There stood in Fleet Street a little shop, kept by one Sweeney Todd, a barber. It was this monster's practice when persons possessing wealth entered his shop to destroy them. He did it by these means :-A chair was fixed to a trap door, and by touching a spring, the chair turned the poor victim into a dark cellar below, where, if he did not meet his death by the fall, he was soon killed by this cruel man. Todd's cellar communicated with the bakehouse of Mrs. Lovett, who kept a pie shop in Bell Yard, near Shire Lane. She assisted to get rid of the bodies, and shared in the gains."--1870s blurb |
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Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as the villain of the penny dreadful serial The String of Pearls (1846–1847). The original tale became a feature of 19th-century melodrama and London legend. A barber from Fleet Street, Todd murders his customers with a straight razor and gives their corpses to Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime, who bakes their flesh into meat pies. The tale has been retold many times since in various media.
Claims that Sweeney Todd was a historical person are disputed strongly by scholars, although possible legendary prototypes exist.
Plot synopsis
For the original version of the tale, Todd is a barber who kills his victims by pulling a lever as they sit in his barber chair. His victims fall backward through a revolving trap door into the basement of his shop, generally causing them to break their necks or skulls. In case they are alive, Todd goes to the basement and "polishes them off" (slitting their throats with his straight razor). In some adaptations, the murdering process is reversed, with Todd slitting his customers' throats before dispatching them into the basement through the revolving trap door. After Todd has robbed his dead victims of their goods, Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime (in some later versions, his friend and/or lover), assists him in disposing of the bodies by baking their flesh into meat pies and selling them to the unsuspecting customers of her pie shop. Todd's barber shop is situated at 186 Fleet Street, London, next to St. Dunstan's church, and is connected to Mrs. Lovett's pie shop in nearby Bell Yard by means of an underground passage. In most versions of the story, he and Mrs. Lovett hire an unwitting orphan boy, Tobias Ragg, to serve the pies to customers.
Literary history
Sweeney Todd first appeared in a story titled The String of Pearls: A Romance. This penny dreadful was published in 18 weekly parts, in Edward Lloyd's magazine The People's Periodical and Family Library, issues 7–24, published 21 November 1846 to 20 March 1847. It was probably written by James Malcolm Rymer, though Thomas Peckett Prest has also been credited with it; possibly each worked on the serial from part to part. Other attributions include Edward P. Hingston, George Macfarren, and Albert Richard Smith. During February/March 1847, before the serial was even completed, George Dibdin Pitt adapted The String of Pearls as a melodrama for the Britannia Theatre in Hoxton, east London. It was in this alternative version of the tale, rather than the original, that Todd acquired his catchphrase: "I'll polish him off".
Lloyd published another, lengthier, penny part serial during 1847–1848, with 92 episodes. It 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. A plagiarised version of this book appeared in the United States c. 1852–1853 as Sweeney Todd: or the Ruffian Barber. A Tale of Terror of the Seas and the Mysteries of the City by "Captain Merry" (a pseudonym used by American author Harry Hazel, 1814–1889).
In 1865, the French novelist Paul H.C. Féval (1816–1887), famous as a writer of horror and crime novels and short stories, referred to what he termed "L'Affaire de la Rue des Marmousets" in the introductory chapter to his book La Vampire.
In 1875, Frederick Hazleton's c. 1865 dramatic adaptation Sweeney Todd, the Barber of Fleet Street: or the String of Pearls (see below) was published as volume 102 of Lacy's Acting Edition of Plays.
A scholarly, annotated edition of the original 1846–1847 serial was published in volume form in 2007 by the Oxford University Press with the title of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, edited by Robert Mack.
