Description

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. The Bishop's Jaegers (1932) tells the story of Peter Van Dyke, heir to a coffee importing fortune, whose life and high society engagement are turned upside down when his secretary, Josephine Duval, determines to rescue him from his fate by ruining his reputation. An amusing scandal ensues involving a naked Peter, Miss Duval and an ill-starred burglar in a coat closet, and Peter finds himself cast adrift amongst a motley crew that includes Bishop Waller of the Episcopal Church and former glamour model, Aspirin Liz. This unlikely party descend on New York's most risque nudist colony, and the liberation of coffee importer Peter is set in motion. This is one of Smith's few comic novels in which no element of the supernatural is featured. The author assumes that the reader will know that "Jaegers" refers to a union suit, a type of one-piece long underwear.