Thomas Peckett Prest (probable dates 1810-1859) was a British hack writer

Hack writer

Hack writer is a colloquial and usually pejorative term used to refer to a writer who is paid to write low-quality, rushed articles or books "to order", often with a short deadline. In a fiction-writing context, the term is used to describe writers who are paid to churn out sensational,...

, journalist and musician. He was a prolific producer of penny dreadful

Penny Dreadful

A penny dreadful was a type of British fiction publication in the 19th century that usually featured lurid serial stories appearing in parts over a number of weeks, each part costing an penny...

s. He is now remembered as the co-creator (with James Malcolm Rymer

James Malcolm Rymer

James Malcolm Rymer was a British nineteenth century writer of penny dreadfuls, and is the probable author of Varney the Vampire and co-author of The String of Pearls , in which the notorious villain Sweeney Todd makes his literary debut.Information about Rymer is sketchy...

) of the fictional Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd

Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...

, the 'demon barber' immortalized in his The String of Pearls

The String of Pearls

The String of Pearls: A Romance is the title of a fictional story first published as a penny dreadful serial 1846-47. The main antagonist of the story is the infamous Sweeney Todd, "the Demon Barber of Fleet Street", who here makes his literary debut....

. He has also been associated with the authorship of Varney the Vampire

Varney the Vampire

Varney the Vampire; or, the Feast of Blood was a Victorian era serialized gothic horror story by James Malcolm Rymer . It first appeared in 1845–47 as a series of cheap pamphlets of the kind then known as "penny dreadfuls". The story was published in book form in 1847...

, now more often thought to be the work of Rymer. He wrote under pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

s including Bos, a takeoff of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

' own pen name, Boz. Before joining Edward Lloyd

Edward Lloyd (publisher)

Edward Lloyd was a British publisher.Born in Thornton Heath, Lloyd studied shorthand at the London Mechanics' Institution, then wrote a book on stenography. Before he was eighteen, he had opened shops in London to sell cheap books and valentines.From 1835, he began publishing cheap books, many...

's publishing factory, Prest had made a name for himself as a talented musician and composer.