Topper (Modern Library (Paperback))

[Thorne Smith] created the modern American ghost.   A ghost with style and wit. A ghost that haunts us still. --The New York Times. Thorne Smith is a master of urbane wit and sophisticated repartee. Topper his best-known work is the hilarious ribald comedy on which the hit television show and movie (starring Cary Grant) were based.. It all begins when Cosmo Topper a law-abiding mild-mannered bank manager decides to buy a secondhand car only to find it haunted by the ghosts of its previous owners--the reckless feckless frivolous couple who met their untimely demise when the car careened into an oak tree. The ghosts George and Marion Kerby make it their mission to rescue Topper from the drab summer of suburban Sundays that is his life--and they commence a series of madcap adventures that leave Topper and anyone else who crosses their path in a whirlwind of discomfiture and delight. . As enchanting today as it was when first published in 1926 Topper has set the standard in American pop culture for such mischievous apparitions as those seen in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir Heaven Can Wait Beetlejuice and Bewitched.