Vice Versa

About F. Anstey

F. Anstey was the pseudonym of Thomas Anstey Guthrie who was born in Kensington, London on August 8th, 1856, to Augusta Amherst Austen, an organist and composer, and Thomas Anstey Guthrie, a prosperous military tailor. Anstey was educated at King’s College School and then at Trinity Hall, Cambridge. Although his education was first rate, Anstey could only manage a third-class degree; a gentlemen’s degree as it was euphemistically known. In 1880, he was called to the bar. However, this career path rapidly fell away in his desire to become an author.

The successful publication of Vice Versa in 1882, with the premise of a substitution of a father for his schoolboy son, made his name and reputation as a refreshing and original humorist. The following year, he published a more serious work, The Giant's Robe. Interestingly, the story is about a plagiarist, and Anstey was, ironically, accused of plagiarism in writing the work. Despite good reviews, both he and his public knew that his writing career was to be that of a humorist.

In the following years, he published prolifically beginning with; The Black Poodle (1884), The Tinted Venus (1885), A Fallen Idol (1886), and Baboo Jabberjee B.A. (1897). Anstey worked not only as a novelist and short story writer but was also a valued member of the staff at the humorous Punch magazine, in which his voces populi and his parodies of a reciter's stock-piece (Burglar Bill) represent perhaps his best work.

In 1901, his successful farce, The Man from Blankleys, based on a story that originally appeared in Punch, was first produced on stage at the Prince of Wales Theatre, in London. Anstey had become a writer, and a successful one at that, of many talents. Many more of his stories were made into plays and films over the years. Others were simply taken for the premise alone, usually with no credit to the original author.

By the end of the First World War, Anstey’s original publications had slowed to a crawl, and he seemed rather more interested in translating and publishing some works of Molière. Thomas Anstey Guthrie died of pneumonia on March 10th, 1934, in London. His self-deprecating autobiography, A Long Retrospect, was published in 1936.