Showing results by author "Peckett Prest" in All Categories

Before the Broadway musical, before the film, there was the novel. Now you can listen to this original tale for yourself, and trace the origins of the mythic, and gruesome, Barber of Fleet Street. From November 1846 to March 1847, this story was published in eighteen weekly parts, initially under the title The String of Pearls: A Romance. This was part of the "penny dreadful" genre of literature, cheap, lurid, and sensationalistic fiction, aimed at a popular audience, at an affordable price. These would be sold for a penny in cigar shops and other such places.

Our story begins in 1785 when a young seafarer, Captain Thornhill, disappears while visiting the shop of a barber in London, a certain Sweeney Todd whose shop in Fleet Street is situated by St. Dunstan's church, just round the corner from the famous and popular meat pie shop run by Mrs. Lovett. Thornhill was carrying a string of pearls as a gift for Johanna Oakley, the sweetheart of his friend Mark Ingestrie who is missing, presumed lost at sea.