Editing Thorne Smith

{{Short description|American novelist (1892–1934)}}
{{more citations needed|date=June 2022}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name = Thorne Smith
| image = Thorne Smith.png
| caption = Smith in the mid-1920s
| pseudonym = 
| birth_name = James Thorne Jr
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1892|03|27}}
| birth_place = [[Annapolis, Maryland]]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1934|06|20|1892|03|27|mf=y}}
| death_place = [[Florida]]
| occupation = {{flatlist|
* Author
}}
| period = 1918–1934, 1941 (posthumously)
| genre = Comic fantasy fiction, [[mystery (fiction)|mystery]], poetry, screenwriting
| movement = 
| notableworks = ''Topper''
<!-- Infobox writer no longer supports the fields influences and influenced. See TALK
 -->| website = {{URL|https://www.thornesmith.net/}}
| spouse = 
}}
'''James Thorne Smith, Jr.''' (March 27, 1892 &ndash; June 20, 1934) was an American writer of humorous supernatural [[fantasy]] fiction under the byline '''Thorne Smith'''. He is best known today for the two ''Topper'' novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, much drinking and ghosts. With racy illustrations, these sold millions of copies in the 1930s and were equally popular in paperbacks of the 1950s.

==Life and career==
Smith was born in [[Annapolis, Maryland]], the son of a Navy commodore, and attended [[Dartmouth College]]. In 1919, after being discharged from the Navy the same year, he moved to [[Greenwich Village]], where he met Celia Sullivan whom he would marry. In need of money, he worked part-time as an advertising agent. Their first daughter Marion was born on November 14, 1922, and their second daughter June on March 4, 1924. In 1926 Smith achieved meteoric success with the publication of ''Topper''. He was an early resident of [[Free Acres, New Jersey|Free Acres]], a social [[experimental community]] developed by [[Bolton Hall (activist)|Bolton Hall]] according to the economic principles of [[Henry George]], in [[Berkeley Heights, New Jersey]].<ref>Buchan, Perdita. [http://njmonthly.com/articles/towns_and_schools/bestplacestolive/utopia-nj.html "Utopia, NJ"], ''[[New Jersey Monthly]]'', February 7, 2008. Accessed February 27, 2011. "Free Acres had some famous residents in those heady early days: actors James Cagney and Jersey City–born Victor Kilian, writers Thorne Smith (''Topper'') and MacKinlay Kantor (''Andersonville''), and anarchist Harry Kelly, who helped found the Ferrer Modern School, centerpiece of the anarchist colony at Stelton in present-day Piscataway."</ref><ref>[https://amsaw.org/amsaw-ithappenedinhistory-032705-smith.html Thorne Smith - American Society of Authors and Writers]</ref> He died of a heart attack in 1934 at the age of 42 while vacationing in [[Florida]].<ref>[https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/00/09/10/bookend/bookend.html Drinking Gin With the Dead]</ref>

Smith was a close friend of actor [[Roland Young]], who played the character Topper in several movie adaptations of Smith's work. After Smith's death, Young wrote a short biography, ''Thorne Smith: His Life and Times'', which is now a collector's item.<ref>[[Ben Mankiewicz|Mankiewicz, Ben]] (June 12, 2024). Outro to the [[Turner Classic Movies]] presentation of the film ''[[Topper (film)|Topper]]'' (1937).</ref>

==Works==
* ''Biltmore Oswald: The Diary of a Hapless Recruit'' (1918). A series of comic stories written for the Naval Reserve journal ''The Broadside'' while Smith was in the Navy.
* ''Out O' Luck: Biltmore Oswald Very Much at Sea'' (1919).
* ''Haunts and Bypaths'' (1919). A book of poetry.
* ''Topper'' (1926, copyright renewed 1953{{snd}}also known as ''The Jovial Ghosts''). This and its sequel, ''Topper Takes a Trip'' (1932, set in the French Riviera), are probably Smith's most famous work, about a respectable banker called Cosmo Topper, married to his depressingly staid wife Mary, and his misadventures with a couple of [[ghosts]], Marion and George Kerby, who introduce him to other ghosts.  He is romantically attracted to Marion, who at one point tries to kill him so that they can always be together.  Unusually for such a book, Mary is treated sympathetically—she does not like what she has become and tries to change. 
: ''Topper'' was made into [[Topper (film)|a 1937 film]] starring [[Cary Grant]] as George Kerby, [[Constance Bennett]] as Marion Kerby, and [[Roland Young]] as Cosmo Topper. Two filmed sequels followed: ''[[Topper Takes a Trip]]'', in 1939, and ''[[Topper Returns]]'', in 1941.  The latter film was not based on a book. Young reprised the role in the 1945 NBC radio summer replacement series ''[[The Adventures of Topper]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.thornesmith.net/Adventures-of-Topper.html|title = The Adventures of Topper}}</ref> The books were adapted into an American [[television]] series, ''[[Topper (TV series)|Topper]]'', beginning in 1953, with [[Leo G. Carroll]] as Cosmo Topper, and [[Robert Sterling]] and [[Anne Jeffreys]] as the ghosts. Seventy-eight episodes were made.  The [[Television pilot|pilot]] episode and a few of the early episodes were written by [[Stephen Sondheim]].
* ''Dream's End'' (1927, copyright renewed 1955). A serious novel that was not a success.
* ''The Stray Lamb'' (1929). Mild-mannered investment banker, [[cuckold]], and [[dipsomania]]c T. Lawrence Lamb gains perspective on the human condition during a series of mysterious [[Shapeshifting|transformations]] into various animal forms. Lamb, his daughter Hebe, her boyfriend Melville Long, and Hebe's friend Sandra Rush (a twentyish lingerie model who becomes Lamb's love interest) pursue many adventures, most of which fall well outside the perimeter of law and order. Lamb has, like many Thorne Smith heroes, a shrewish (and in this case adulterous) wife who at one point tries to murder him (at the time he is a goldfish). As in many Thorne Smith novels, a courtroom scene involving the protagonists and an exasperated judge provides a climax to the characteristically tipsy action. This novel is included with ''Turnabout'' and ''Rain in the Doorway'' in ''The Thorne Smith 3-Decker'' (Sun Dial Press, 1933).
* ''Did She Fall?'' (1930). A mystery novel admired by [[Dashiell Hammett]].{{citation needed|date=October 2014}}
* ''The Night Life of the Gods'' (1931). Quirky inventor Hunter Hawk strikes [[gold]] when he invents a device enabling him to turn living [[matter]] into [[Rock (geology)|stone]] and to reverse the process at will. After a chaotic field test he meets stunning 900-year-old [[Megaera]], who teaches him to turn stone into flesh. They and some friends set their sights on [[New York City]] to bring the [[Roman mythology|Roman gods]] of the [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]] to life: [[Mercury (god)|Mercury]] shows himself an expert pickpocket, while [[Neptune (mythology)|Neptune]] causes chaos in the fish market.
* ''Turnabout'' (1931) pits two modern married people into a battle of the sexes.  Noticing the bickering and jealousy of a young man and wife, an [[Ancient Egypt|Egyptian]] idol causes them to [[body swap|switch bodies]]. Tim Willows works in an advertising agency, and several of the scenes draw on author Thorne Smith's experience.  After his wife, Sally, impregnates her husband, things take a decided turn for the worse as they separately try to deal with the object of the former wife's affections—a square-jawed philanderer by the name of Carl Bently.  The scene in which Tim, trapped in his wife's body, exacts an icy revenge on the unfortunate interloper is one of the unforgettable moments of Thorne Smith's peculiar humor. Both a [[Turnabout (film)|film]] (1940) and a short-lived [[Turnabout (TV series)|1979 television sitcom]] starring [[Sharon Gless]] and [[John Schuck]] (canceled after six episodes) were based on ''Turnabout'',<ref>[http://www.tv.com/turnabout/show/7603/summary.html&full_summary=1 Turnabout Show Summary] at www.tv.com</ref> as to some extent was the last broadcast episode of ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'', "[[Turnabout Intruder]]".<ref>{{cite web |last1=DeCandido |first1=Keith R.A. |title=Star Trek The Original Series Rewatch: 'Turnabout Intruder' |url=https://www.tor.com/2016/11/08/star-trek-the-original-series-rewatch-turnabout-intruder/ |website=Tor |date=8 November 2016 |access-date=11 May 2019}}</ref> This novel is included with ''The Stray Lamb'' and ''Rain in the Doorway'' in ''The Thorne Smith 3-Decker''.
''Turnabout'' was one of the inspirations for [[Mary Rodgers]]' popular young adult novel ''Freaky Friday''. As she was considering a new children’s book, following several picture books for young children, she remembered "that when I was fourteen, I’d read and loved a novel called ''Turnabout'', by Thorne Smith. Vicious and hilarious, it was something I thought I could emulate in children’s fiction .  . . for teens."<ref> Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green, ''Shy'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, pp. 367-368</ref>
* ''Lazy Bear Lane'' (1931). A children's book.<ref>[http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/2006/cur0605.htm ''Fantasy and Science Fiction:'' Curiosities] at www.sfsite.com</ref>
* ''The Bishop's Jaegers'' (1932). The depressed, indifferent heir of a vast coffee import fortune, Peter Van Dyke finds his life and high society engagement turned upside down when his secretary, Josephine Duval, determines to “rescue” him by ruining him morally.  After an amusing scandal in a coat closet, he is cast adrift in a fog with a motley crew that includes a bishop of the Episcopal Church and a former nude model named Aspirin Liz.  The enterprising party lands unceremoniously on the shores of a [[naturist resort]], and the liberation of the coffee importer is set in motion. Smith, in one of his few comic novels devoid of any element of the supernatural, assumes the reader would know that "Jaegers" refers to a [[union suit]].
* ''Rain in the Doorway'' (1933). A [[cuckold]] husband, Hector Owen, inadvertently becomes a partner in a big-city department store. The bulk of the action involves the inebriated adventures of Owen, his three partners (Mr. Horace Larkin, a man called Dinner, and Major Barney Britt-Britt), and a salesgirl from the pornographic books department, Miss Honor "Satin" Knightly. Of the three novels included in ''The Thorne Smith 3-Decker'' (see ''The Stray Lamb'' and ''Turnabout'' above) this is the most openly erotic, with many direct suggestions of sexual encounters, accompanied with cartoons of nude women cavorting with the protagonists, drawn by artist Herbert Roese.  The Thorne Smith courtroom scene provides a climax, but the novel's biggest surprise isn't sprung until the final pages.
* ''Skin and Bones'' (1933). A photographer's freak accident in the darkroom produces a chemical concoction causing him and his dog to randomly switch back and forth between normal and X-ray (skeleton) versions of themselves.  Drinking and cavorting ensues as he finds people able to see beyond his appearance and appreciate him for who he is, while inadvertently terrifying those who cannot.  Unusually, his wife Lorna is an attractive personality.
* ''The Glorious Pool'' (1934). Perhaps the best example of Thorne Smith's acutely sharp social humor played out against a backdrop of the [[Volstead Act]] ([[Prohibition of alcohol|Prohibition]]).  Two unrepentant reprobates are celebrating the 25th anniversary of the seduction which made the stylish Rex Pebble into an adulterer and his companion, Spray Summers, into his hard-boiled mistress.  While their exasperating and alcoholic Japanese houseboy, Nakashima, plays jujitsu with the English language, the two slip into a swimming pool, the waters of which have been changed into a fountain of youth.  Abandoning their clothes and modesty with their advanced years, the newfound youthfulness of their bodies puts into motion an evening of hijinks that only a seasoned and well-practiced couple of sinners could imagine.
* ''The Passionate Witch'' (1941, published posthumously and completed by Norman H. Matson). Produced in 1942 as the film ''[[I Married a Witch]]'', this novel was one of the inspirations, along with ''[[Bell, Book and Candle]]'', for the long-running TV series ''[[Bewitched]]''. A sequel to the novel, ''Bats in the Belfry'' (1942), is entirely by Matson, though sometimes attributed to Smith.

During World War II, ''Skin and Bones'', ''Turnabout'', ''The Night Life of the Gods'', ''The Passionate Witch'', ''The Stray Lamb'', ''The Bishop's Jaegers'', ''The Glorious Pool'', and ''Rain in the Doorway'' were all published in mass-market sized paperbacks by [[Armed Services Editions]] for distribution to the military.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==

===Dissertations===
* Joseph Leo Blotner, ''Thorne Smith: A Study in Popular Fiction'' (1951 dissertation, 197 pages with bibliography and appendices)
* Howard Steven Jitomer, ''Forgotten Excellence: A Study of Thorne Smith's Humor'' (1983 dissertation, 224 pages with bibliography)
* Peter Zilahy Ingerman, ''The World in Thorne Smith'' (1991 dissertation, 323 pages including appendices)

=== Biographies ===
* Roland Young & Thorne Smith, ''Thorne Smith: His Life and Times'' (1934, Doubleday, Doran & Company, New York, 32 pp.)
* Anthony Slide, ''A Man named Smith: The Novels and Screen Legacy of Thorne Smith'' (2015, Albany, GA, 174 pp.)

===Bibliographies and checklists===
* Haas, Irvin, comp. "[James] Thorne Smith [Jr.] 1893–1934." (American First Editions. Edited by [[Jacob Blanck]].) ''The Publishers’ Weekly'', 130 (28 November 1936): 2134.
* Sprague, Don. "Thorne Smith." ''Collecting Paperbacks?'' 3, no. 2 (May 1981), 19.
* Valone, Philip J., Jr. ''A Thorne Smith Source Book''. N.p.: The author, 1982.
* Bleiler, E. F. ''The Guide to Supernatural Fiction''. Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, [1983], pp.&nbsp;464–66.
* Scheetz, George H., and Rodney N. Henshaw. "Thorne Smith." ''Bulletin of Bibliography'', 41, no. 1 (March 1984): 25–37. Illustrated.
* [Ahearn, Patricia, and Allen Ahearn.] "Thorne Smith." ''Author Price Guide'', No. [069], June 1986. 3 pp. Published by Quill & Brush; P. O. Box 5365; Rockville, Md. [Based on Scheetz, q.v.; credited.]
* [Smiley, Kathryn]. "A Thorne Smith Checklist." ''Firsts: Collecting Modern First Editions'', 3, no. 4 (April 1993): 19. Illustrated.

==External links==
{{Wikisource author}}
* [http://www.thornesmith.net/ The Official Thorne Smith Website] by Michael D. Walker
* [http://members.tripod.com/~JCHOMA/bio.htm Biography at Thorne Smith: Haunts & By-Paths]

===Libraries===
* {{ISFDB name|1313}}
* [http://hdl.library.upenn.edu/1017/d/ead/upenn_rbml_PUSpMsColl992 Joseph Blotner collection on Thorne Smith, Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Pennsylvania]

===Online editions===
* [http://www.librarything.com/author/smiththorne LibraryThing author profile]
* {{Gutenberg author | id=6836 }}
* {{FadedPage|id=Smith, Thorne|name=Thorne Smith|author=yes}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Thorne Smith |sopt=t}}
* {{Librivox author |id=2274}}
* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Smith%2C%20Thorne%2C%201892-1934 Thorne Smith, The Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania]
* [http://forgottenfutures.co.uk/smith/smith.htm Archive of Thorne Smith novels which are out of European copyright]

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Thorne}}
[[Category:1892 births]]
[[Category:1934 deaths]]
[[Category:20th-century American male writers]]
[[Category:20th-century American novelists]]
[[Category:20th-century American short story writers]]
[[Category:American fantasy writers]]
[[Category:American humorists]]
[[Category:American male novelists]]
[[Category:American male short story writers]]
[[Category:Dartmouth College alumni]]
[[Category:Novelists from Maryland]]
[[Category:Novelists from New Jersey]]
[[Category:People from Berkeley Heights, New Jersey]]
[[Category:Writers from Annapolis, Maryland]]
[[Category:Writers from Union County, New Jersey]]