Vice Versa

Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934) was an English novelist. Born in London, Guthrie was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge before being called to the bar in 1880. He achieved early success with Vice Versa (1882), a comic novel in which a businessman and his school-age son switch places. More novels followed, earning him a spot on the staff of Punch, England's leading humor magazine. Several of his works would be adapted for theater and film, including Vice Versa and The Tinted Venus (1885). Guthrie's novel Tourmalin's Time Cheques (1891) is considered one of the earliest stories of time travel and the first to investigate its moral and practical implications. Guthrie was a pioneering novelist whose unique blend of fantasy, humor, and science fiction made him a bestselling writer of Victorian Britain.