Before You Begin

Before you begin.

Close by the old church of St. Dunstan, in the Fleet Street of King George's London, there stood a little barber's shop kept by a man named Sweeney Todd. His razor gave the easiest shave in London for a penny — and now and then a customer who sat down in his high-backed chair was never seen to walk out of it again. A few steps away, in Bell Yard, Mrs. Lovett sold the most celebrated meat pies in the city, and the hungry clerks of the Temple crowded her counter at noon. This is the tale that first bound those two shops together, and gave the world its most enduring monster.

The String of Pearls appeared in weekly penny numbers in 1846–1847, and out of its cheap, breathless, wildly popular pages walked Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street — a figure who has haunted stage, screen, and song ever since. Beneath the melodrama runs a real mystery: a sailor vanishes while carrying a string of pearls sent home by Mark Ingestrie for love of Johanna Oakley; a faithful dog will not leave the barber's door; a terrified apprentice is spirited away to a madhouse; and a brave girl cuts off her hair, puts on a boy's clothes, and walks straight into the lion's den to learn the truth.

Its terror is a thing of suggestion — a closed razor gleaming on the bench, an empty chair above a hinge in the floor, a door ajar upon the dark, a tray of pies steaming in the lamplight — and it is all the stronger for what it leaves to the imagination.

This illustrated edition opens with a gallery of the cast, the map of old Fleet Street, and the great scenes of the mystery; and as you read, the story unfolds in six visual movements — recap plates you unlock along the way, each gathering together the tale so far, with never a glimpse of what lies ahead. Turn the page, and step into the fog of Fleet Street.