Thorne Smith

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James Thorne Smith Jr. (born March 27, 1892 in Annapolis , Maryland , † June 21, 1934 in Sarasota , Florida ) was an American writer and screenwriter .

Life

Thorne Smith was the son of Commodore James Thorne Smith Sr. After attending school at the St. Luke's High School in Wayne ( Pennsylvania ) studied Smith at the Locust Dale Academy ( Virginia ) and completed his studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover ( New Hampshire ) .

During World War I , Smith served in the U.S. Navy . After the war ended, he married Celia Sullivan. With her he had two daughters: Marion and June. From 1933 he worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . He often used the pseudonyms Norman Matson and John D. MacDonald .

Thorne Smith died of a heart attack at the age of 42 .

reception

Thorne Smith became known, especially during the Prohibition period, for numerous humorous fantastic novels in which he targeted the bourgeois and puritanical life of middle-class America. His most famous work Topper (1926) was with Cary Grant filmed on whose success two sequels and a television series followed. Other film adaptations are The Nightlife of the Gods (1933) and My Wife, the Witch (1942).

In Germany his works were published for the first time in the 1980s as part of the book series Library of Fantastic Adventures by Fischer Verlag.

Works (selection)

stories
  • Horse in Bed . In: Lily Golden (Ed.): The literary horse. Great modern stories about horses . Atlantic Monthly Press, New York 1995.
Topper cycle
  • Topper . Modern Library, New York 1999, ISBN 0-375-75305-2 (reprint of the New York 1926 edition).
  • Topper. An improbable adventure . McBride Publ., New York 1926.
  • Topper takes a trip . Pocket Books, New York 1945 (EA New York 1932).
    • Topper goes on a journey . Fischer-Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt / M. 1986.
more novels
  • Biltmore Oswald. The diary of a hapless recruit . Stokes, New York 1918.
  • Out O'Luck. Biltmore Oswald very much at sea . Stokes, New York 1919.
  • Dream's End . McBride Publ., New York 1927.
  • The Stray Lamb . Sun Dial Press, Garden City 1942 (EA New York 1929).
  • Did she fall? Methuen, London 1956 (reprint of the New York edition 1930).
  • Lazy Bear Lane . Doubleday Doran, New York 1931.
  • The Night Life of the Gods . Pocket Books, New York 1947 (reprint of New York 1931 edition).
    • The night life of the gods . Fischer-Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt / M. 1986, ISBN 3-596-22710-0 .
  • Turnabout . Sun Dial Press, Garden City 1931.
    • Wrong world . Fischer-Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt / M. 1987, ISBN 3-596-22732-1 (former title: The Enchanted Couple ).
  • The Bishop's Jaegers . Doubleday Doran, New York 1932.
  • Rain in the doorway . Doubleday Doran, New York 1933.
  • Skin and Bones . Sun Dial Press, New York 1933.
  • The Glorious Pool . Sun Dial Press, Garden City 1934.
    • The fountain of youth . Fischer-Taschenbuchverlag, Frankfurt / M. 1987, ISBN 3-596-22729-1 .
  • The Passionate Witch . Methuen, London 1955 (reprint of Garden City 1941).
  • Bats in the belfry . Doubleday Doran, New York 1943.
Collective works
  • The Thorne-Smith 3-excavator. Includes "Skin and Bones", "The glorious pool" and "Topper" . Sun Dial Press, New York 1945.

literature

Essays
  • James D. Hart: Smith, Thorne (1892-1934) . In: Ders .: The concise Oxford Companion to American Literature . Cornelsen Verlag, Hamburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-06-800545-3 .
  • Friedhelm Rathjen : The three book ruins. On the relevance of Grillparzer , Stettinius and Thorne Smith for “Brand's Haide” and “Schwarze Spiegel” . In: Bargfelder Bote , Vol. 261/262 (2002), pp. 3-19, ISSN  0342-8036
  • Friedhelm Rathjen: Smithereens. For Nach (t) Leben by James Joyce , Robert Burns and Thorne Smith in “Caliban over Setebos” . In: Robert Less (Ed.): Repeated reflections. Eleven essays on the work of Arno Schmidt . Edition Text + Critique, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-88377-737-4 , pp. 129–154.
  • Smith, Thorne . In: American National Biography, Vol. 20 . New York 1999, pp. 296-297.
Monographs
  • Joseph Blotner: Thorne Smith. A study in popular fiction . Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania 1951.
  • Clay Geerdes: Thorne Smith, America's forgotten humorist. An overview of the life and writings of James Thorne Smith jr. New York 1988.
  • Howard S. Jitomir: Forgotten excellence. A study of Thorne Smith's humor . Dissertation, S. John's University, Collegeville, Min. 1983.
  • Anthony Slide: A man named Smith. The novels and screen legacy of Thorne Smith . BearManor Media, Duncan, Okl. 2010, ISBN 978-1-5939-3528-3 .
  • Roland Young: Thorne Smith. His life and times . Doubleday Doran, New York 1934.

Film adaptations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b First appeared in The Broadside. A journal for the Naval Reserve Front .
  2. ^ Published posthumously by Norman Matson.
  3. ↑ Conceived as a continuation of the novel The passionate witch by Thorne Smith and published posthumously by Norman Matson.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Smith, Thorne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Smith, James Thorne
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American writer
DATE OF BIRTH March 27, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH Annapolis , Maryland
DATE OF DEATH June 21, 1934
Place of death Sarasota , Florida