Book description
Beware the blood-soaked razor of Sweeney Todd, demon barber of
Fleet Street!
Johanna Oakley's lover, Mark, has gone missing in suspicious
circumstances. And the man who was meant to deliver Mark's last gift
to her, a string of pearls, has gone missing too - last seen entering
the barber-shop of Sweeney Todd.
In desperation, Johanna decides to dress up as a boy in order to
gain access to Todd's premises. There, in a fetid underground crypt,
she will discover the grisly truth about what has really happened to
Sweeney Todd's unsuspecting customers - and what they have to do with
Mrs Lovett, famed maker of the most delicious pies in London ...
Thomas Preskett Prest (probable dates 1810-1859) was a British hack
writer, journalist and musician. He was a prolific producer of penny
dreadfuls. He is now remembered as the creator of the fictional Sweeney
Todd, the 'demon barber' immortalized in his
The String of Pearls: A Romance
. He has also been associated with the authorship of
Varney the Vampire
, now more often thought to be the work of J. M. Rymer. He wrote under
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.
