The String of Pearls; or, Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
By James Malcolm Rymer (1814? – 1884)
With 90 full-page illustrations.
“The String of Pearls” is a very entertaining, macabre Victorian horror story, well-seasoned with ironic humor, and populated with rather Dickensian characters. Sweeney Todd, a Fleet Street barber, murders and robs his customers; and their remains are profitably made into delicious meat pies by his accomplice, Mrs Lovett. This latter fact is only implied until quite late in the book, but the reader will discern the grisly truth almost immediately.
Urban legends involving gruesomely sourced fast-food had circulated for decades before his appearance, but the story of Sweeney Todd has been the most enduring. The tale’s popularity resulted in dozens of variously titled reprints, imitations, and stage adaptations. Today Todd is perhaps best known as the central character of the Stephen Sondheim musical “Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. A Musical Thriller.” (1979), and Tim Burton’s movie adaptation of that musical (2007), starring Johnny Depp.
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Sweeney Todd first appeared in “The String of Pearls: A Romance,” a penny dreadful serial of 39 chapters, beginning in November 1846.
This ebook is based on an Internet Archive scan of the massively expanded (177 chapters) 1850 version, “The String of Pearls, or, The Barber of Fleet Street.” To substantiate Sweeney’s tenancy of this ebook, the title has been modified to “The String of Pearls; or,
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”
The first 31 chapters of this book are identical to the original 39-chapter penny dreadful; the Appendix presents the remaining 8 chapters. I have added a cross-linked glossary, to assist modern readers with the Victorian slang and expressions; and just for fun, a Cast of Characters.
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OCR and spelling errors were corrected; punctuation, italics and diacritics formatted; spelling and punctuation regularized for consistency. Paragraph breaks from the original serial have been reinstated, and some paragraph breaks added to the “expansion” chapters. Chapters have been renumbered correctly, and some chapter titles relocated or rewritten for clarity. Illustrations have been placed adjacent to their associated text. Embedded font for titling.
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Available in the hefty 2-volume illustrated version; or for readers on a diet, the slender un-illustrated “complete” version, only 2.1mb.
EDIT TO ADD: Uploaded version 2, with many corrections to punctuation errors ---
many thanks to Tex2002ans! previous downloads Illustrated Volumes: 23 ea, "Single Complete": 20
Bon Appetite!
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