Famed for being the baker who stuffed her pies with the flesh of Sweeney Todd's victims, Margery Lovett has long been in the demon barber of Fleet Street's diabolical shadow. But what led a woman who began life as a hard-working butcher's daughter to such distasteful crimes?
Famed for being the baker who stuffed her pies with the flesh of Sweeney Todd's victims, the notorious Mrs Lovett has long been in the diabolical shadow of Fleet Street's murderous barber. But what could lead a woman who began life as a hard-working butcher's daughter to such distasteful crimes?
When young Margaret Evans's skill with the knife and saw brings her to the attention of a well-to-do doctor in early Victorian London, she is whisked from the offal-streaked streets of Whitechapel and installed in his Highgate home as a maid and sometime medical assistant. And thus begins a hellish journey straight out of the penny dreadfuls of the day – one in which Margaret must employ all her wit and resourcefulness to avoid the clutches of crazed anatomists, sinister child-snatchers and the seemingly all-seeing gentlemen freemasons who seek to take away her liberty.
Nobody can keep an East End butcher's daughter down though. When, by nefarious means, she takes ownership of a little Fleet Street pie shop, and discovers the sinister barber who plies his trade upstairs takes the name of his cutthroat razor a little too literally, Margaret finds a way to turn the situation to her advantage. But with so many of the gentlemen who've come to Todd's parlour in search of a shave disappearing without trace, how long can she keep herself from suffering the same deadly fate?

Corinne Leigh Clark is a writer of gothic stories that reflect the human condition in a historical context. She is a graduate of the creative writing program at the School of Continuing Studies, University of Toronto (Twitter/X: @corinne_writer; Instagram: @corinneclarkwriter)