Editing Thorne Smith (section)

==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.