Thomas Anstey Guthrie

Artist Info

Thomas Anstey GuthrieLondon, 1856 - 1934, London

http://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/no2017052146

Guthrie, Thomas Anstey [pseud. F. Anstey] (1856–1934), humorous writer, was born in London on 8 August 1856, probably at 7 St George's Terrace, Gloucester Road, the eldest of the three sons and one daughter of Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1822/3–1889), military tailor, of Cork Street, Burlington Gardens, and Augusta Amherst Austen (1827–1877), a professional pianist. The Guthries came from Forfarshire two or three generations back, and his mother came from Irish stock. Anstey was educated at a private school at Surbiton (the original of Crichton House in Vice Versa), at King's College School, and at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where he read law. Anstey's literary endeavours, however, eclipsed law and he received a third class. While at Cambridge he contributed humorous pieces to the Undergraduates' Journal and other magazines such as Mirth, in the process of which he acquired the pseudonym F. Anstey because of a printing error (this name is sometimes mistakenly assumed to be a corruption of ‘fantasy’). While at Cambridge he also embarked on ‘Turned Tables’—the story of a father and son who magically exchange places, resulting in Mr Bultitude attending his son's school—which was inspired by his own encounters with his eccentric schoolmaster. It was serialized in the Cambridge Tatler and published as Vice Versa in 1882 following a hiatus after the death of his mother. He was called to the bar in 1881, but never practised, and eagerly took the chance of becoming a writer given him by the great success of Vice Versa. This first novel made him famous overnight and it is suggested that its humour precipitated Anthony Trollope's fatal stroke. It provided the model for other fantasies, including Mary Rogers's Freaky Friday (1972), which in some ways was the female version of the story which Anstey declined to write. The Giant's Robe, the story of a plagiarist, followed in 1883, but ironically charges of actual plagiarism blighted its success and Anstey's career as a serious novelist. In 1884 he collected his short stories in The Black Poodle, while A Fallen Idol (1886) demonstrated that Anstey was a competent horror writer.

In 1886 Anstey began a connection with Punch, and in 1887 was ‘called to the Table’ at the Punch office; he remained on the staff until 1930. With the series ‘Voces populi’, ‘Mr. Punch's Young Reciter’, ‘Mr. Punch's Model Music-Hall Songs and Dramas’, and ‘Mr. Punch's Pocket Ibsen’ (all of which were published in book form and remain of some socio-historical importance), Anstey developed a superior talent for burlesque and parody, for recording and subtly transmitting the day-to-day talk of Londoners. The Man from Blankley's, based on the Punch series, was later a successful play and film.

While working for Punch Anstey continued to write fiction. The Pariah (1889), another excursion into serious fiction, failed to restore his reputation in this genre. Tourmalin's Time Cheques (1891) has interest as one of the first literary experiments with the paradox of time travel, while the unsuccessful and anonymously published The Statement of Stella Maberly (1897) is an earnest treatment of schizophrenia. His children's book Only Toys! (1903) was moderately successful but has not been rediscovered by successive generations. The Brass Bottle (1900), based on the Arabian Nights, was, however, his most popular fantasy after Vice Versa, and in turn it influenced E. Nesbit's Five Children and It (1902). The dramatic qualities of his fiction resulted in The Brass Bottle being produced on stage in 1909 and on film in 1963. Vice Versa was produced as a Christmas play in 1910 (the most memorable film version starred Peter Ustinov in 1947).

During the First World War Anstey was a volunteer in the Inns of Court reserve corps and performed Home Guard duties. In Brief Authority (1915) was his last novel; its reliance on Germanic folklore sealed its unpopularity at the time of publication, although it has subsequently been critically acclaimed. In 1925 he issued the final volume of collected Punch sketches, The Last Load; it sold poorly. His later literary work was devoted largely to translating and adapting the plays of Molière for the English stage.

Anstey died of pneumonia at his home, 24 Holland Park Road, Kensington, on 10 March 1934. His ashes lie in the grave of his friend and brother-in-law George Millar in Blatchington churchyard in Sussex. He never married and had lived all his life in London, where he was recognized by his immaculate dress and prominent moustache, and respected by his wide circle of friends for his equable disposition.

In his autobiography, The Long Retrospect (1936), Anstey, with characteristic modesty, bears the decline of his reputation with clear-sightedness, dissecting his failures rather than exalting in his successes and grateful for his first flush of success and for his dwindling band of readers. He realized that he was out of favour in Britain in the 1930s (he had never enjoyed much popularity in America) and despite the enthusiasm of George Gordon, president of Magdalen College, Oxford, who propelled the publication of an omnibus edition of his popular fiction entitled Humour and Fantasy (1931), he was not surprised to learn that the public now found his reliance on the supernatural outmoded.

Anstey is finally, however, being recognized as one of the most popular and skilled of the late Victorian fantasists who used magic and humour to intersect with and unsettle the ordinary. Critics have remarked on his status as ‘the best novelist of the tight space’ (Lucas) and his ability to make plausible the most astonishing transformations. Some of his pieces have been reassessed as sophisticated satires of late nineteenth-century frailties (Harris-Fain), including his stories for children which can be considered as significant in the development of the form.

Douglas Woodruff, rev. Clare L. Taylor

Sources

F. Anstey [T. A. Guthrie], A long retrospect (1936); repr. (1938) · D. Harris-Fain, ed., British fantasy and science-fiction writers before World War I, DLitB, 178 (1997) · L. M. Zaidman, ed., British children's writers, 1880–1914, DLitB, 141 (1994) · D. Pringle, ed., St James guide to fantasy writers (1996) · J. Stratford, ‘F. Anstey’, British Museum Quarterly, 33 (1968–9), 80–85 · E. V. Lucas, ‘F. Anstey’, English Illustrated Magazine, 29 (Aug 1903), 544–5 · E. F. Bleiler, The guide to supernatural fiction (1983) · S. J. Kunitz and H. Haycraft, eds., Twentieth century authors: a biographical dictionary of modern literature (1942) · personal knowledge (1949) · private information (1949) · d. cert. · IGI