Considering how exhausting Varney the Vampire (1845) was, I was pleasantly surprised by Sweeney Todd. They're both penny dreadfuls (19th century serial literature; weekly installments cost a penny), but the difference is that Sweeney's story is actually interesting and you want to know what happens next. Reading it at one go does it no favors, but in all its verbosity it's still ten times easier to read than Dickens. Whatever flaws Sweeney has, it's just the way penny dreadfuls were.

I still like the concept more than the execution. Sweeney himself is a legendary figure who's best known from the musical, but the other characters are fairly bland and uninteresting (and, true to penny dreadfuls, the actual plot is all over the place). The Christopher Bond play, however, really improves on the story and brings to focus everything that still gets a reaction from the modern audiences. I saw an amateur production of it in London, and they really did their best with what little resources they had.

Now, did Sweeney really exist? Most likely not, but it doesn't matter. I got chills down my spine when I was on a ghost bus tour and it drove past the supposed location of the barbershop. That's what good stories do. They make the reality come alive.