She made the new and novel argument that Rymer drew inspiration from a Royal Navy initiation or hazing ritual, the Line-Crossing Ceremony. Nesvet answered that question for a full house in the Friends of the Library room in Wilson. Such as, how did Rymer come up with his outrageous premise?” Rebecca with String of Pearls open to the portrait of Sweeney Todd Whitaker Fund, which provides generous amounts for the purchase of English literature at Chapel Hill, that fine copy of the String of Pearls now sits on a shelf at the Rare Book Collection, next to other rare Rymer novels: Grace Rivers or, The Merchant’s Daughter (1844) and Paul Clifford or Hurrah for the Road (1853).Īs Rebecca Nesvet notes: “Like Sweeney Todd’s Fleet Street establishment, Rymer’s String of Pearls contains intriguing mysteries. She became aware, however, of another copy for sale by an antiquarian book dealer and alerted the RBC. candidate in English and Comparative Literature, had been able to find only one institution holding that illustrated classic, the British Library in London. Originally published serially, it appeared in 1850 as an expanded one-volume edition, which is a book of excessive rarity today. The story of a London barber who kills and robs his clients, and whose accomplice turns their remains into meat pies, became an immediate bestseller. In 1846, the prolific but now-obscure Victorian writer James Malcolm Rymer introduced the notorious Sweeney Todd in the String of Pearls, or, The Barber of Fleet Street: A Domestic Romance. James Malcolm Rymer, String of Pearls (London, 1850) / PR5285 R99 S8 1850 / William A.

Sweeney Todd by James Malcolm Rymer