The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance (alternatively titled The Sailor's Gift) is a story first published as a penny dreadful serial from 1846 to 47.

Todd kills his victims by pulling a lever while they are in his barber chair, which makes them fall backward through a revolving trapdoor and generally causes them to break their necks or skulls on the cellar floor below.

The plot concerns the strange disappearance of a sailor named Lieutenant Thornhill, last seen entering Sweeney Todd's establishment on Fleet Street.

Thornhill was bearing a gift of a string of pearls to a girl named Johanna Oakley on behalf of her missing lover, Mark Ingestrie, who is presumed lost at sea.

Eventually, the extent of Todd's activities is uncovered when the dismembered remains of hundreds of his victims are discovered in the crypt underneath St. Dunstan's church.

The String of Pearls: A Romance was published in 18 weekly parts, in Edward Lloyd's The People's Periodical and Family Library, issues 7–24, 21 November 1846 to 20 March 1847.

It is frequently attributed to Thomas Peckett Prest, but has been more recently been reassigned to James Malcolm Rymer;[2] other names such as E.P Hingston have also been suggested.

This expanded version of the story was 732 pages long, and its conclusion differs greatly from that of the original serial publication: Todd escapes from prison after being sentenced to death but, after many further adventures, is finally shot dead while fleeing from the authorities.

[3] The 1612 French historical nonfiction book Le Théâtre des Antiquités de Paris by Father Jacques du Breul [fr] contains a section titled De la maison des Marmousets (From the house of the Marmousets) that mentions a "murderous pastry cook" who incorporates into his pie the meat of a man he murdered due to its alleged dietary benefits.

This was published two years before The String of Pearls (1846–47) and included a character by the name of Tom Pinch, who feels lucky that his own "evil genius did not lead him into the dens of any of those preparers of cannibalic pastry, who are represented in many country legends as doing a lively retail business in the metropolis" and worries that John Westlock will "begin to be afraid that I have strayed into one of those streets where the countrymen are murdered; and that I have been made into meat pies, or some such horrible thing".

[9][10] Peter Haining suggested in a 1993 book that Dickens was inspired by knowledge of the "real" Sweeney Todd, but that he chose not to mention him, in case some of his victims' relatives were still alive.