Topper

This is a product of its day written in 1926 and the Roaring Twenties was in full bloom, nothing seemed serious since the carnage of the Great War, everything is fun and games until the deluge...Cosmo Topper a staid and dull banker with an nagging wife who has perpetual indigestion (she needs Pepto......more

Hmm. Better than "Night Life of the Gods" but it leaves me feeling a bit uncomfortable. I think it's because I feel a slight edge of desperation in all the consumption of alcohol (the book is set during Prohibition). I suspect this was because apparently the author was a heavy drinker, and he certai......more

Thorne Smith is a brilliant writer of the 30's. Imagine Dorothy Parker and F. Scott out in the town during thier worst drinking period - and somewhere in that taxt home is Thorne Smith. As F. Scott is under a blanket of gloom, Thorne is very much happy with his life. In fact he's carefree in a world......more

If I had to pick one 20th century author who has been mostly forgotten and long overdue for a revival, it would be Thorne Smith. He was a master at the satiric, both criticizing and adoring the staunch American upper class. I would say he is the closest thing to an American Oscar Wilde. In fact, whe......more

I first read the Topper books as a child in the 1960s, and was rather startled to come across them again in new editions in the 1980s, the ghosts of past years slyly rematerialised. Both books do in fact deal with ghosts—this one was originally titled The Jovial Ghosts. Smith’s ghosts are quite untra......more