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THORNE SMITH: A STUDY IN POPULAR FICTION PDF

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COPYRIGHTED by JOSEPH LEO BLOTNER 19-51 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THORNE SMITHj A STUDY IN POPULAR FICTION BY Joseph Leo Blotner A Dissertation in English Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 1951 .obert E. Spiller, Supervisor Matthias-Arr-Shaaber, Graduate Chairman Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page. INTRODUCTION................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER I - HIS LIFE............................................................................. 7 CHAPTER II- HIS TALENTS AND POTENTIALITIES............................... 45 CHAPTER III- THE FORMULA FOR THE COMIC NOVELS, WITH VARIATIONS AND DEVICES . , ........................................................ 66 CHAPTER IV- OBSCENITY AND IMMORALITY..................................................101 CHAPTER V- SOCIAL CRITICISM AND SATIRE .............................122 CHAPTER VI- HIS POPULARITY AND APPEAL..............................................1?5 SUMMARY.................................................................................................................192 BIBLIOGRAPHY ........................................................................................199 APPENDIX A- HIS SALES ....................................... 204 APPENDIX B- USE OF THE COMIC FORMULA.................................................205 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION This is not a study of one of the giants cf American literature* It is the study of a writer who was less than great, and through him, the study of a phenomenon. Novelists like Thorne Smith appear from time to time on the literary scene, writers who enjoy tremendous popularity without being brilliant or highly distinguished. A study of Smith, solely for his own intrinsic merit, would not be unrewarding, but we shall examine two things at once: a conspicuous literary phenomenon and a gifted and / heretofore ignored writer. Popular fiction is here interpreted to mean fiction capable of being enjoyed by both the average man in the street and the individual with more highly developed literary tastes and interests. It has the appeal of popular music as contrasted to the appeal of the classical or semi-classical. But it is not limited to a popular audience, just as some who enjoy Berlin can also enjoy Berlioz. Another characteristic of popular fiction is its salesj it is fiction whose popularity is evinced by consistently breaking into the best-seller column. Thorne Smith is an ideal subject, for his works are all these things. Although many intelligent and cultured people have enjoyed his books, he has never been a darling of the intellectuals. It is to the average reader that he owes his popularity, the person whose tastes lead him to the middle ground of literature, the expanse bounded on one side by the great and often difficult and on the other side by the very bad. His books meet the best-seller criterion since over thirteen million copies Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -2- of them have been sold in the United States alone* They have also been sold in Canada, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, England, France, Finland, Greece, India, Israel, Italy, Norway, South Africa, Sweden, and Yugoslavia, They are s till being sold in most of these countries, and his foreign sales probably bring his total sales well above twenty million volumes. Another reason for studying Smith is the fact that although the reviews of his books in the nation’s leading newspapers and magazines total over fifteen thousand words, he has always been neglected by almost all the important .critics. As Carl Van Dorensaid: The brash comedy of Thorne Smith’s The Stray Iamb was little noted in a year resounding with Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms, Evelyn Scott’s The Wave, William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Furv, Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward,. Angel,^ One can substitute any of Smith's books for The Stray Iamb, changing the other authors and titles accordingly, for, in Van Doren's words again: Criticism regularly overlooked Thorne Smith,,,though he had a dis­ tinctive talent and an engaging vein,^ The present writer was also led to the s election of Smith as a subject by acquaintance with his daughters and, through them, access to the notes and manuscripts he left. They include the manuscripts of Topper, Did She Fall?, The Night Life of the Gods, Rain in the Doorway, and Yonder's Henry, Except for one, possibly two, copies of Topper, these are the only manuscripts known to be extant. They represent various stages in the cre­ ative process, for a ll of them are marked with erasures, cross-tuts, and interlineations. The manuscript of Yonder*s Henry represents a very early form of the dbory while that of Topper is fairly close to the printed ver­ sion, There are also manuscript fragments of Turnabout and The Bishop’s Jaegers. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. There are typed copies of Topperf Turnabout,. Did She Fall? T The Night Life of the Godsr Lazy Bear Laner and Topper Takes A Trip. Many manuscript deletions have been made in these versions, and though there are occasional interlineations, they are very close to the printed text. Also made available for study were Smith's notebook and various jottings, as well as letters and pictures, while Roland Young gave the writer access to ten letters received by him from Smith. Smith is also of interest to the student of literature for in some ways he is unique. He was a fantasist as well as a humorist, and while these qualities had been combined in American letters before - notably in James Branch Cabell - Smith's writing had an original, dis­ tinctive quality that was recognized by both the reviewers and the general 3 public. The changing of men into animals goes back to Ovid and Lucian, and the transmigration of souls and talk of it can be found in sources from ancient Hindu writings to Volponer but Smith's touch made his material into something completely his own. Smith was peculiarly a part of his times and yet not a part of them. With one hand, as it were, he wrote about the contemporary scene with its foibles, vices, and follies, while with the other he wrote about a land that, like Cabell's Poictesme, existed only in his imagination and the books that it created. Through the study of Thorne Smith one can also examine another literary phenomenon - the stereotype. To the average person, Kipling was a man who wrote Gunga Pin, some poems about the British Tommy in India, 1I| Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. -4- and a few other things. To this same person or one just like him, Thorne Smith was a man who wrote Topper and other books which are dis­ tinguished chiefly by an abundance of liquor, sex, and nakedness, with comedy added to keep the books from being merely dirty. One has but to mention Smith*s name and wait for the snicker to see the existence of the itereotype, A detailed examination of his work will show the extent to which it is correct or erroneous. We shall first consider Smith's life with a view to giving an intimate picture of the man and his development as an artist. After an inventory of his literary abilities and potentialities, as seen from his work in more than eight different forms, we shall try to determine whether or not he forfeited an opportunity to do serious writing by devoting his energies to the light novels which sold so well. The formula which he evolved for them - his blueprint for commercial success - with its standard ingredients and occasional variations will then be examined. The frequency with which charges of immorality and obscenity are leveled at Smith make it necessary to scrutinize the books for these elements. The satire and social commentary in Smith's work, noted by s>me of the more dis­ cerning reviewers and by ardent Smith fans, will be considered in detail as they are seen in the dozen or so topics which a re their subject. After an analysis of the mainfhctors contributing to his appeal to such a large segment of the reading public, we shall give an over-all estimate of the man and his work. No exaggerated claims w ill be made for Smith or his books, but it is hoped that from these pages will emerge not only the picture of a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. man who was a literary phenomenon, hut also the portrait of a highly competent and many-sided artist who, in his own way, stands apart in American letters. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. FOOTNOTES INTRODUCTION 1. Carl Van Doren, The American Novel, (Rev. and enl. ed., New York The Macmillan Company, 194.0), p. 325. 2. Ibid., p. 331. 3. Sixteen years after Smith’s death, the following appeared in Time August 7, 1950, p. 32; ’’For Spring publication by Prentice-Hall: a novel 'with a Thorne Smith touch1...w ritten by,...David Niven." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER I HIS LIFE Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.

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