Topper

Topper, published in 1926, is Thorne Smith's comic masterpiece. Cosmo Topper is a respectable, dull, middle-aged man trapped in routine — until the ghosts of George and Marion Kerby, a glamorous young couple killed in a car crash, decide to liberate him from his own life. What follows is a riotous campaign of supernatural misbehaviour as the Kerbys drag Topper through speakeasies, country houses, and increasingly improbable situations. Smith's witty, irreverent prose and gift for absurd set-pieces made Topper one of the most popular comic novels of its era.