Authors: Robert Mack
ISBN-13: 9780199543441, ISBN-10: 0199543445
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Date Published: November 2007
Edition: (Non-applicable)
Robert L. Mack is the author of Thomas Gray, A Life and editor of The Arabian Nights' Entertainments and Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield for Oxford World's Classics.
A sensational story of murder and pie-making, Sweeney Todd is a classic of British horror writing, widely adapted in print and on stage, most famously by Stephen Sondheim, whose unlikely "musical thriller" won eight Tony awards. This edition offers the original story with all its atmospheric Victorian trimmings. The story of Todd's murderous partnership with pie-maker Margery Lovettat once inconceivably unpalatable and undeniably compellinghas subsequently set the table for a seemingly endless series of successful dramatic adaptations, popular songs and ballads, novellas, radio plays, graphic novels, ballets, films, and musicals. Both gleeful and ghoulish, the original tale of Sweeney Todd, first published under the title The String of Pearls, combines the story of Todd's grisly method of robbing and dispatching his victimsby way of Mrs. Lovett's meat pieswith a romantic sub-plot involving deception, disguise, and detective work, set against the backdrop of London's dark and unsavory streets. Editor Robert Mack 'fleshes' out the story with a fascinating introduction touching on the origins of the tale, the growth of the legend, and a history of its many retellings. Mack also includes explanatory notes that point out interesting aspects, plus a full chronology of the many versions of Sweeney Todd.
Since Sweeney Todd first entered the public imagination in the mid-nineteenth-century, his exploits have chilled and fascinated audiences around the world. This new edition allows modern readers to savor the ghastly original in all its gruesome glory.