The most famous character to emerge from the world of penny dreadfuls, and probably the only one who is still a household name today, must be Sweeney Todd, the barber of Fleet Street.
On this page I hope to put together a complete bibliography (and filmography) of this character, and also to provide e-texts of some of the more hard-to-find works featuring him.
One of the sources that almost certainly served as inspiration was a story first published in the Tell Tale. (see Louis James, Fiction for the Working Man, p. 190; and Jarndyce's Bloods catalogue, #520.) It was reprinted in The Terrific Record, No. 4, pp. 53-55, as Horrid Murder and Shocking Discovery Discovery (London: E. Steill, in 49 sixteen-page numbers in 1849-50).
The American writer Harry Hazel (1814-1889), using the pseudonym Captain Merry, "wrote" Sweeney Todd: or, The Ruffian Barber of Fleet Street. A Tale of the Terrors of the Seas and the Mysteries of the City. (1865) I say "wrote" since I believe this is little more than a plagiarism of the work originally published by E. Lloyd. (This and many other works by Harry Hazel are available online at a site run by Indiana University. For this site's complete index click here.)
Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was a 16 page booklet published by Ritchie about 1881. According to Michael Holmes this is an abridged version of the story published earlier by Charles Fox.
The String of Pearls, or Passages from the life of Sweeny Todd, the Demon Barber appeared in The Boy's Standard in 6 installments, No. 213 New Series, Saturday, June 6, 1885 to No. 218, Saturday, July 11, 1885. This serial was not illustrated, and I suspect it was intended as a sort of teaser or advertisement for the longer version that the publisher Charles Fox was to re-issue a short time later in weekly numbers.