Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
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Sweeney Todd - Anonynous Anonymous
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SWEENEY TODD
BY ANONYMOUS
AN EBOOK
ISBN 978-1-908694-86-7
PUBLISHED BY ELEKTRON EBOOKS
COPYRIGHT 2013 ELEKTRON EBOOKS
www.elektron-ebooks.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a database or retrieval system, posted on any internet site, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright holders. Any such copyright infringement of this publication may result in civil prosecution
INTRODUCTION
The penny blood
came into being through a process which began with higher standards of general education and literacy in England at the beginning of the 19th century, and continued with the invention of fast and efficient printing presses and cheap paper production. These combined elements simultaneously created a new, mass market for literature, and fed that market with new, affordable product.
The gothic novel, popular amongst a rarefied class of literary readers, duly gave way to sensationalistic, graphic shockers for the masses.
The most popular forms of publication during this period were chapbooks and broadsheets; broadsheets, favoured by the poor reader, usually contained an illustrated ballad based on some (often scandalous) item of news. In 1818 James Catnach, one of the major London broadsheet publishers alongside John Pitts, was gaoled for producing an exceptional gruesome sheet telling the story of a cannibal butcher. But even more relevant to this study are the gothic chapbooks
– illustrated booklets of either 36 or 72 pages – which began to proliferate at the turn of the century, and presented new literary form in a new physical template; typical titles would include The Secret Oath, or Blood-Stained Dagger (1802) and The Cavern Of Horrors, or, Miseries of Miranda (1802). Among the main publishers of these chapbooks were Dean And Munday and Thomas Tegg; they sold their wares at sixpence for 32 pages, and one shilling for 72 (hence the term shilling shockers
). By condensing the contents to a series of gory and macabre highlights, reinforced by graphic woodcuts, these pamphlets were an early forebear of the penny papers to come.
A typical example of the transition from gothic literature to populist pulp is Edward Montague’s The Demon Of Sicily, a book first published in London in 1807, and reprinted with lurid illustrations in 1839 by William Dugdale, a noted pornographer and publisher of The Exquisite erotic periodical (1842-44). Basically, Montague’s novel takes the most outrageous elements of gothic works such as The Monk, ramps them up to new levels of sex, violence and gore, and delivers them in a literary form more accessible to the then-putative mass market
:
At the decayed bridge Leonardi alighted, he conducted the trembling form of Isabella through the broken portals. Well knew the Knight the subterraneous recesses of the castle; within its tottering walls his own arm had perpetrated dark deeds of horror.
Down many a step which seemed to be a passage to the bowels of the earth, he forced the wretched Isabella, till at length they entered a dungeon.
Now, lady,
said he in harsh accents, ‘tis like thou mayest repent of the deep insult you have offered me. No longer a suitor, I command thee to yield to my wishes; dreadful indeed will be the punishment of disobedience, for my soul yet burns with the remembrance of the injury I have received.
The soul of Isabella rose above the horrors of her situation; she seized the dagger that glittered in the girdle of the gloomy Leonardi.
Barbarian,
said she, I fear thee not; in a moment I can put myself beyond thy infamous design. Powers of mercy, receive my soul!
The dagger she had directed to her bosom here interrupted her; she fell to the ground, her pure blood dyed her garments.
Furious grew Leonardi at being disappointed of his expected prey; he looked blackly on the prostrate Isabella; she still lived, for the wound was not mortal.
Since not my desires, I can however yet satiate my revenge; the pangs of death from my hand shall torture thee.
Thus said, he drew his glaive; he divided the lovely head of Isabella from the convulsed body; he caught it by the beautiful long black tresses, and strode away with it to another chamber; he set it on a piece of a broken column, and contemplated with a demoniac satisfaction the features once so lovely, so interesting, but now ghastly with the agonies of death. Those eyes,
said he, "will no longer look indignant on me; neither will that mouth further insult me.
Would I could have increased the torture of death; gladly would I have done it; for her groans were comfort to my soul."
Some days he continued indulging his black revenge; at length a new thought struck him; I will go,
said he, to the cell where her body lies, and take from it her proud heart; I shall find pleasure in trampling on it.
Other sub-gothic melodramas of this period included The Witch of Ravensworth (1808), by George Brewer; The Mysterious Hand, or, Subterranean Horrors! (1811), by Augustus Jacob Crandolph; Manfrone, or, The One-Handed Monk (1809), by Mary Anne Radcliffe; and Rosalviva, or, The Demon Dwarf (1824), by Grenville Fletcher.. By 1826, macabre literary material of this type – dealing with witchcraft, deformity, depravity, insanity, sadism and gore – could be found in Legends Of Terror, a 40-part omnibus of supernatural tales, and later in The Casket, a weekly publication which touted itself as the first of the penny papers
. Published through the auspices of the Ladies Penny Gazette, The Casket regularly contained such tales as The Ice-Witch, The Devil’s Ducat, The Evil Eye, The Fiend Of The Heath, The Skeleton Count, and Vampires Of London, completing the transition from gothic novel to mass-produced pulp horror. Such weeklies, usually of eight pages in length, tightly typeset in double columns, cheaply printed and illustrated by gruesome woodcuts, were produced in vast numbers from then until around 1850; this was the golden age of the penny blood
.
As early as 1823, horrific material was also available in various proto-true crime
periodicals, serial publications such as The Tell-Tale (1823-4), Legends Of Horror (1825-6) and The Terrific Register (1825-7); packed with illustrated accounts of violent robbery, murder, cannibalism, dismemberment, torture and execution, these had their roots in such 18th century book anthologies as Captain Johnson’s A General History Of The Robberies And Murders Of The Most Notorious Pirates (1724) and The Newgate Calendar (1774), a compendium of crimes, trials and hangings which appeared in numerous editions and even spawned a separate literary sub-genre, the Newgate novel
as epitomised by William Harrison Ainsworth’s Rookwood of 1834. The History And Adventures Of That Famous Negro Robber, Three-Fingered Jack
, The Terror Of Jamaica (1822) was a one-off, 24-page crime romance
in this tradition which described itself as a penny misery
. Later penny crime weeklies would include William Strange’s Calendar Of Crime (1832) and George Drake’s Calendar Of Horrors (1835, notable for its serial Geralda, The Demon Nun; or, The Charmed Bracelet). The Calendar Of Horrors was edited by one Thomas Peckett Prest, a key figure in the history of pulp fiction. Prest, who also edited The Horrors Of War (1936) for Drake, was soon turning his hand to writing serial fiction, and over the ensuing decade would produce a huge volume of work notable for its grotesquerie and gore.
It was Edward Lloyd, a bookseller turned publisher, who detonated the penny-pulp market with the inauguration of a new line of sensationalistic mass-produced bloods, his career starting in 1936 when he took over The History and Lives Of The Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Murderers, Brigands, Pickpockets, Thieves, Banditti, and Robberies of Every Description and The History Of The Pirates Of All Nations (both originally published by George Purkess). Although these were published monthly, ran for around 24 pages and sold for sixpence, Lloyd soon realised that the format favoured by The Casket – weekly, 8 pages, and retailing at just one penny – was the way to reach the masses. Running stories in a multi-episode, serial format also ensured repeat custom. Supplementing his income by low-rent plagiarisms of Charles Dickens, Lloyd soon built up a raft of weekly publications, including Lloyd’s Entertaining Journal, The Penny Sunday Times, Lloyd’s Companion To The Penny Sunday Times, Lloyd’s Penny Weekly Miscellany, Lloyd’s Penny Atlas, Lloyd’s Weekly Miscellany, and The People’s Periodical. By 1843 he had moved to new premises in Salisbury Square, introducing new high-speed printing presses, and was even manufacturing his own paper. He also employed a pool of writers-for-hire in order to cover the immense anmount of work needed to fill his weeklies; chief amongst these were the aforementioned Thomas Prest, one James Malcolm Rymer, and one E.P. Hingston.
Besides short stories with such lurid titles as Confessions Of A Deformed Lunatic or The Madhouse Of Palermo, Lloyd’s journals were primarily driven by the serials, largely written by either Prest, Rymer, or a combination of both