Fantasy Anstey, F.: Vice Versa; A Lesson to Fathers. v1. 11 Dec 2021

[GrannyGrump]

A father and son swap bodies through the (largely unintentional) use of a magic talisman. While the son (in his father’s guise) runs his business into the ground, the unfortunate father (who has asserted that schooldays are the best years of a boy’s life) has a terrible time at his son’s boarding school, for which he is singularly ill-equipped.

This book was a favorite of C.S. Lewis, and in his autobiographical Surprised by Joy, he calls it “the only truthful school story in existence.”

Perhaps one of the earliest “body-swap” stories, Vice Versa has spawned numerous adaptations over the years.

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Thomas Anstey Guthrie (8 August 1856 – 10 March 1934) was an English author (writing as F. Anstey), most noted for his comic novel Vice Versa about a boarding-school boy and his father exchanging identities. His reputation was confirmed by The Tinted Venus and many humorous parodies in Punch magazine. Guthrie became an important member of the staff of Punch magazine, in which his “Voces Populi” pieces and his humorous parodies of a reciter’s stock-piece (“Burglar Bill,” etc.) represent his best work. Other familiar titles include The Black Poodle and The Brass Bottle. Many of Anstey’s stories have been adapted for stage and film.

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This novel was first published in 1882. Cover vignette appeared on Humour and Fantasy, John Murray publ, 1931. This ebook is in the public domain where copyright is “Life+80” or less, and in the USA.
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