Thomas Anstey Guthrie (1856-1934) was an English novelist and journalist who wrote his comic novels under the pseudonym F. Anstey. After graduating from King's College, Cambridge he was called to the bar in 1880 but the popular success of his story Vice Versa (1882), with its topsy-turvy substitution of a father for his schoolboy son, earned him an immediate reputation as a humorist of an original type. He published this serious novel in 1884 but soon discovered that it was as a humorist that the public insisted on regarding him and went on to publish many other successful works in that genre. He became an important member of the staff of Punch magazine and many of his stories have been adapted for stage and screen productions.