Novel 281: F. Anstey, Vice Versâ (1882)
A staid middle-aged merchant is made by a magic stone to exchange bodies with his schoolboy son.
F. Anstey, born Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934), wrote regularly for the humor magazine Punch, and twenty works of fiction, most based, like this one, on fanciful comic premises.
“A perfectly sober and serious book, in the reading of which a sober man may laugh without shame from beginning to end.” Saturday Review, July 15, 1882
“It is a long time since we have read anything more truly humorous.” Spectator, August 26, 1882
“A capital bit of sustained humor.” New York Times, October 29, 1882
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