The Jovial Ghosts: The Misadventures of Topper

James Thorne Smith, Jr. (1892-1934) was an American writer of humorous supernatural fantasy fiction under the byline Thorne Smith. He is best known today for his two Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, much drinking, and ghosts, the racily illustrated editions of which sold in their millions in the 1930s, becoming equally popular when released as paperback editions in the 1950s. The son of a Navy commodore, Smith attended Dartmouth College, spent time in Greenwich Village as a part-time advertising agent, and then achieved meteoric success with the publication of Topper (also known as The Jovial Ghosts) in 1926. As hard-drinking as his famous characters, he was an early resident of Free Acres, a social experimental community in Berkeley Heights, NJ, and died of a heart attack while vacationing in Florida. Topper and its 1932 sequel Topper Takes a Trip, set on the French Riviera, are Smith's best-known and most enduring works, telling the story of a respectable banker named Cosmo Topper, who is married to the depressingly staid Mary, and his misadventures with the ghosts Marion and George Kerby. Topper is romantically attracted to Marion who at one point tries to kill him so they can always be together. Topper was made into a 1937 film starring Cary Grant and Constance Bennett as George and Marion Kerby, with Roland Young in the title role, followed by two sequels, the latter not based on a book by Smith. In the 1950s the books were adapted into an American TV series.

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