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...
The String of Pearls
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle.
Learn more
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
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.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Sweeny Todd at his awful best,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The String of Pearls: A Romance. Thomas Peckett Prest (Read Red) (Paperback)
Almost everyone knows Sweeny Todd from a play, a movie or at the very least a movie trailer. Among the most famous serial killers in the history of crime, he became an early urban legend. Nineteenth-century nursery maids would control naughty children with threats of Sweeney Todd coming to get them.
The most influential account of the demon barber's story appeared in the novel String of Pearls, published in 1846, forty-five years after the trial of Sweeney Todd. The author, Thomas Preskett Prest, was a hack writer, and his novel a penny dreadful, the lowest form of mass-market literature in the nineteenth century. But literary standards were higher in those days, and even the potboilers could be pretty good. For the most part, The String of Pearls is quite well written. Prest only falls into platitudes in the sentimental scenes. Otherwise he has a positive genius for describing evildoers at work in terrifying settings. Prest is so skilled at building tension with horrific little details that it doesn't really matter that you know the outcome. It's great fun to watch the various characters observing the repulsive barber, their suspicious deepening. And you can almost feel yourself choking on Mrs. Lovett's "savory, delightful, gushing gravy pies" of questionable ingredients. For an experience of the tremors felt by Victorian readers as they devoured the sensational literature of their age, you can't do better than to read The String of Pearls. It's the quintessential example of a cheap thriller so thrilling it became a classic.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Listmania!
|
|
