Sweeney Todd?

[kensei]

I noticed on the "British Serial Killers" thread one very brief mention of the "at least partially legendary" Sweeney Todd. As it happens, I just finally saw the Johnny Depp movie a couple of days ago, which quite frankly is a two hour emotional bombardment upon the senses (that means I liked it). I'm an American and I'm sure that if I lived in England I would be far more up on British folklore, but I gotta plead ignorance on this. I had assumed that Sweeney Todd was an entirely fictional character (and was unfamiliar with the play before the movie came out) until I read recently in a book about the making of the movie that there is actually debate about whether he was a real person or not, almost like Robin Hood or King Arthur. And now this quick mention of him here. If he was real then I'm sure the story bears little resemblance to reality, but can anyone clarify this?

[sdreid]

Hi Kensie,

I think the story may have been based on a real case but there was almost certainly not a person named Sweeney Todd. As I recall, no one has found a record of anyone by that name being hanged in Britain so, unless he was executed by the military, he's, by all indications, fictional at least by that name.

[Ally]

Has anyone read the Sweeney Todd piece in the Crime Library website? I was really shocked. While I know that the grammar and writing in Crime Library is often ..uh...lacking in professionalism, I was somewhat apalled to find that they completely make up things and present them as fact. I had thought that the accounts to be found in Crime Library were more or less factual...until I read Sweeney Todd "the real story". Disillusionment.

[Kelly]

They've based the entire thing on the Peter Haining book, just accepting that it's fact. It's the old "Hey, it's in a book; it must be real" syndrome.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Kensei,

Todd first appeared as an anonymously-authored story entitled "The String of Pearls: A romance", which was serialised in the People's Periodical from November 1846 through till March 1847. The proprietor of the People's Periodical, one Edward Lloyd, was a shameless plagiarist of other authors' works himself - Oliver Twiss and Nickelas Nickleberry being but two examples. Lloyd, I believe, was the eponymous founder of Lloyd's Weekly News, which was much later to report on the Ripper murders.

It's not thought that Lloyd himself was the author of The String of Pearls, however. Whilst the authorship of the story is much debated, it was almost certainly a hack writer who either worked on, or contributed to, Lloyd's magazine. Scholars are divided as to whether it was JM Rymer (author of Varney the Vampire, amongst other best-selling "penny bloods" of the day), or Thomas Prest, an alcoholic who died in his late 40s.

Whatever, there is no trace of anyone called "Sweeney Todd" before the publication of The String of Pearls, although his antecedents may be traced in a number of stories of a similar nature from a century or more earlier. Almost without exception, these stories are French, originally concerning a homicidal barber in Paris's Rue des Marmousets, and of comparative antiquity.

Indeed, there is evidence that the French story dates back several centuries before "Sweeney" was even dreamed of, according to Jacques du Breuil's Le Theatre des Antiquites de Paris, published in 1612. "Since time immemorial", he writes, there was a rumour of "a murderous pastry-cook" of the Rue des Marmousets, who obtained supplies of meat from his neighbour, a barber who would slit the throats of his customers as he shaved them.

These French stories persisted for a while, crossing the English Channel and entering into English urban myth. One of its first English appearances in print was in a publication called The Tell-Tale, of 1824. In this latter publication, the action transfers from the Rue des Marmousets to the Rue de la Harpe, where a barber/wig-maker would slit the throats of rich visitors to his shop. He would then rob them, before his neighbour and partner-in-crime, a (male) patissiere, would dispose of the victims' bodies in his celebrated meat pies.

Two years before The String of Pearls was published, Charles Dickens shows that there were urban legends of cannibalism already circulating in London. Tom Pinch, in Martin Chuzzlewit, alludes to tales of visitors from the countryside being turned into meat pies at the hands of homicidal slaughtermen in the back-streets of London.

What The String of Pearls [TSOP] did, it seems, was to take these myths and urban legends and weave them into a popular narrative (it's not a bad book, by the way), adding some flourishes of the author's (or authors') own invention. For instance, whilst the French versions of the story mention throat-cutting whilst the customers were still sat in the chair, TSOP has Sweeney "polish off" his victims in the basement later, after his ingenious swivel-chair has tipped his hapless customers through a trap-door.

It might appear that the swivel-chair was Rymer's/Prest's invention, although its roots again may go back to the 17th Century, and the legend of an unscrupulous innkeeper named Jarman. Proprietor of the Ostrich Inn at Colnbrook, near Slough, Jarman is said to have murdered and robbed rich travellers after putting them up in his "best bed". This was an ingenious contraption which, on pulling a lever, would swivel and tip Jarman's victims into a vat of boiling water concealed immediately under the bed, beneath a trap door. Jarman was reputedly caught and hanged for murder, but only after disposing of over 50 victims in this gruesome (and probably fictional) manner.

The cast of characters that appear in TSOP are purely invention also - there was no "Sweeney Todd", for example (Benjamin Barker doesn't feature in the original), and it's possible that his name was intended as an echo of the notorious, and possibly legendary, Scottish serial killer "Sawney Beane". Beane killed visitors strolling along the Scottish coast and "cured" their meat in his cave to feed his equally cannibalistic family. The other Dramatis Personæ have names that reflect some aspect of their character: Judge Lupin (not "Turpin") perhaps for his wolf-like demeanour; Mrs Lovett (because she probably does ); Toby Ragg (a scruffy urchin, and possibly an allusion to "Toe-rag"); and so forth. In other words, the names themselves are purely invented, and the people they represent - the "demon barber" himself included - are entirely fictional also.

The events of the story, in various disparate forms, appear to have been a part of urban folklore for hundreds of years - a kind of "Punch and Judy with razors", if you like - and, whereas there may have been a kernel of truth at some point in time, the legend of Sweeney Todd is precisely that. A legend, and nothing more.

[Kelly]

To be clear, Sam, I mean the Crime Library site has taken all of their information from the Haining book, not that the Sweeney Todd legend comes from Haining.

[Sam Flynn]

To be clear, Sam, I mean the Crime Library site has taken all of their information from the Haining book, not that the Sweeney Todd legend comes from Haining.

God forbid that I should think so, Kelly! Haining definitely joined the party late apropos the Sweeney Todd legend - and I know that you know that I know that It would appear that the BBC dramatisation of the Sweeney Todd story, which aired a couple of years ago and starred a brooding Ray Winstone, also based itself heavily on Haining's book - my opinion of which I'd best leave unsaid.

[Suzi]

Hi Gareth
MUCH as I'd love to live the Sondheim dream of Sweeney I have to agree that it's nothing more than a dream.

Mind you the Sawney Beans (no relation to Sharpey!) of this world are a damned sight more terrifying!!! Of course the ubiquitous Sawney (sounds a tad like Sweeney!) is possibly a Scottish invention too!

Trust the French to start all of this off!!!!

Of course the phrase 'String of Pearls' has some VERY dubious conotations too! '

I hated the Winstone 'version' too!

(LOVE the idea of Varney the Vampire though!!!) LOL

Suzi x

[Kelly]

God forbid that I should think so, Kelly! Haining definitely joined the party late apropos the Sweeney Todd legend - and I know that you know that I know that

Just making sure that you know that I know that. Ow, my head.

[Suzi]

Hi again Gareth.........The alleged cannibal family of Sawney Bean are pictured below!!!! Last one showing a night in with the Bean family having a 'takeaway'!!!
Outside 'The Cave'

Hehe!... presumably INSIDE said Cave!

Voice off.......'Takeaway for Bean!!'
Great pic isn't it!!!!!....definately a caption oportunity!!!!!

Suz x

[Sam Flynn]

LOVE the idea of Varney the Vampire!!!

I have this vision of him attacking passengers on his double-decker bus

There's an e-text of "Varney the Vampire" here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14833/14833.txt

NB: the attribution to Thomas Prest is disputed.

[sdreid]

Yes, the Sawney Beane case is where some think the idea came from. The name does sound a little like a corruption of that but there are some questions about that case as well. It's possibly like Ed Gein and Psycho.

[Suzi]

Tantalised by Varney.... I've found these wonders!!!! (below) and also if you Google Varney the Vampire there's a link that enables you to download the whole novel for FREE!!!! (Note to self......wait till you're back at work tomorrow!!!)
Of course in this one you can see that the bed's been turned around........and pulled away from the wall/partition!!)

Don't remember the painting looking quite like that.......Shades of Ruddigore here!!!!

Now Gimme mi pinny back or I'll do for ya!!!...little known quote/sketch from Mitre Square!

GORGEOUS cover!!!!

Even better!!!!..MUST download!!!!
LOL Suz x

[Suzi]

I must admit 'I 'ate you Butler' did spring to mind too!!!!!!
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!
Yep I found that link too Gareth...

Stan......And yes the Gein link is a possibility...........well not with Reg Varney..........but there again!!

[Dan Norder]

Incidentally, Sam, did you happen write the Wikipedia article on the topic? I couldn't help but notice the major similarities between your long post above and my recollection of the highlights of the article on Sweeney Todd as I read it there several weeks back.