String of Pearls question

[dangerousdame]

Okay, I just got done reading this really good book about the Sweeney Todd story throughout time, but it left me rather confused.  See, when I read "String of Pearls", I distinctly remembered Sweeney killing Mrs. Lovett's husband-to-be and both of them dying in a fire, into which Sweeney's doctor friend jumped in after them.  But according to this

Comments

[ponygirl118]

There are a bunch of different versions of the Sweeney Todd story.

[sir_poofter]

By "the Sweeney Todd story throughout time" do you mean Peter Haining's book?

Anyways, there are two popular versions of the SoP. The original was given the subtitle "A Romance", which is the version still being published today (that I know about). This is the one where the identity of Mark Ingestrie is kept secret until the end, Toby goes on a magical asylum adventure, and Mrs. Lovett is poisoned by Todd. The other is "The String of Pearls: Or, Passages From the Life of Sweeney Todd". According to Haining, this is cheap American plagerism. This is the version where Mr. Fogg (or, in this version, Lock) hurls himself into an oven or something after hearing about the capture (or death? I don't remember) of Todd. A friend sent me the link to the "Passages" version online, but I've lost the link. I do however still have it saved onto my computer...

[dangerousdame]

Thanks alot! Yeah, I read the second version. My book was "Sweeney Todd: The Life and Times of an Urban Legend", (and the author all but spits on Haining.)

string of pearls

[anonymous]

actually, string of pearls was the first story that sweeney ever appeared in. this was the version of the story that landed in the london penny periodicals. when i read string of pearls, several years ago, the version i read did include the poisoning and such. are you sure you read string of pearls?