Smith's brand of humor in Topper and other comic novels has been compared to music hall comedy, Rabelais, P. G. Wodehouse, and F. Anstey (pseudonym for Thomas Anstey Guthrie, 1856-1934). The dialogue of mock confusion obviously owes much to the stand-up comedians of the music hall, but Smith's brand of humor in Topper borders on the prurient rather than the Rabelaisean. Perhaps H. L. Mencken's twitting of the Puritan conscience and excoriation of Prohibition also formed part of Smith's intellectual background.

Like Smith, F. Anstey introduces magic into an otherwise rational world, with hilarious consequences, often threatening the breakup of engagements or marriages, just as Topper's marriage is threatened by the reckless behavior of the Kerby ghosts. Anstey's story "At a Moment's Notice" resembles Topper in that a respectable man is turned into a monkey after having an accident in a horse-drawn cab. He is made...