Sweeney Todd (formerly Benjamin Barker) is the main character of the 1979 musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler, based on a play named simply Sweeney Todd by Christopher Bond. The character originally appeared in a Victorian penny dreadful, The String of Pearls, by an unknown author. Barker was originally a barber and family man who, after escaping wrongful imprisonment in Australia, changed his name and returned to England. Upon his return and discovery of the fates of his wife and daughter, he set out on a quest of vengeance against those who had wronged them.