Todd is a barber who murders his customers and turns their bodies over to Mrs. Lovett, his partner in crime, who bakes their flesh into meat pies. His barber shop is situated in Fleet Street, London, next to St. Dunstan's church, and is connected to Lovett's pie shop in nearby Bell Yard by means of an underground passage. Todd dispatches his victims by pulling a lever while they are in his barber chair, which makes them fall backward down a revolving trapdoor and generally causes them to break their necks or skulls on the cellar floor below. If the victims are still alive, he goes to the basement and "polishes them off" by slitting their throats with his straight razor.

A belief in the existence of Vampyres first took its rise in Norway and Sweden, from whence it rapidly spread to more southern regions, taking a firm hold of the imaginations of the more credulous portion of mankind. The following romance is collected from seemingly the most authentic sources, and the Author must leave the question of credibility entirely to his readers, not even thinking that he is peculiarly called upon to express his own opinion upon the subject.