Publisher Description

In the late 1920s Topsy is a girl about town, a society deb, a dashing flapper. She writes breathless, exuberant letters to her best friend Trix about her life, her parties, her intrigues, and the men in her life. One particular man draws her into politics, and to Topsy's amazement, she is elected as a member of Parliament.

Author Biography

A P Herbert (1890-1971) was one ofBritain's greatest comic writers, who specialised in writing for Punch,wherethe Topsy letters first appeared. He had a long career as a Member ofParliament and lawyer, during which he was a savage critic of obsolete Britishlaws.

Table of Contents

Introduction,by Kate MacdonaldTheTrials of Topsy1 A Brush withthe Highbrows2 The Simple Life3 Nature4 Don Juan5 Good Works6 Hymen7 Literature 8 Reducing 9 Going to the Dogs10 Ideals11 The Origin ofNieces 12 The SuperfluousBaronet 13 The Noble Animal14 The Fresh Mind15 A Run with theYaffle16 Case for the Defence17 Good Women andTrue18 Charity 19 A Real Christmas20 The Ephemeral Triangle21 Engaged22 The Untrained Nurse23 Politics24 Scandal at Burbleton25 End of Act One Topsy,MP1 Becomes aMember2 Goes Shooting3 Flies Half theAtlantic4 At the Prunery 5 Makes a Film 6 Goes Hunting7 Passes Poxton 8 Is All for Al9 Takes her Seat10 Hauls Down theGold Standard11 Has Words withthe Whips12 Knows Too Much13 Wins Bread 14 Behaves Badly15 Plays Golfwith Nancy16 SolvesEverything17 Converts a Whip18 Is Unlucky19 Converts theCouncillor20 Starts a Salon21 Trouble in theHome22 Asks Questions23 Loses the Whip24 Trouble in theHouse25 DoesNeedlework26 Becomes aMother TopsyTurvy1Peace! 2Consolations3The Suffrage Episode 4The Moon Party 5Frustration6Iodine Dale 7Saving at the Races 8The Danes 9Force 5 10The New House11The Prime Meridian12Good Resolutions 13Heroic Act 14Timothy Brine 15The Dogs16Jack and Jill17Keeping Fit 18The Canaanites 19Stiff Lips 20Movements 21Ulcerous World22Haddock in Trouble23The Speech Sweep 24The Dogs Again 25Radiant Day  

Feature

1 A Brush with the Highbrows WellTrix darling this blistering Season is nearly over and I''m stillunblighted in matrimony, isn''t it too merciful, but you ought to seepoor Mum''s face, my dear she''s saturated with the very sight of me poordarling, not that I don''t try -- last night I went to a perfectly fallacious party with the Antons, my dear all Russians and High Art and beards and everything,wasn''t it too degrading, what I say is why all these sculptors andthings can''t be kept in their own holes I never know, but there it is,after my little anti-climax with Toots Mum said perhaps I was a clever man''swoman after all, so I just went to darling Fritz and I said, Fritz darling willyou horizontalise what hair I have left, and Fritz as usual simply soared to the occasion so that I came out looking like something in the PrussianGuard, and then I went home and embezzled one of Mum''s old dressing-gowns, cutoff the sleeves and sewed up the front, and I went to Whitworth''s and got the most disarming pair of sandals for sixpence, and I apropriated one of those sensational red girdles off the dining-room curtains and let it sort of waft about thehips, and everyone at home said I looked positively Lithuanian . Butmy dear there''s no coping with the intelligentsia, when I got to thisparty which was in some desperate slum in the British Museum orsomewhere, my dear all critics and bohemians and things, well when Itell you that I felt like an Archdeacon''s daughter, because there wasn''t a hair in the place my dear, except one or two who had positive tresses, only they worethem floating round the ankles and everywhere, my dear too Druid ,and as for clothes, they all had bits of tapestry, and altarpieces ,and Crimean carpets , and, my dear, anything but clothes , so mypoor little dressing-gown struck a note of absolute tedium , and really Ifelt like an understudy with the inferiority what-name on the last night of Chu-Chin-Chow . SoI just crawled into the cloak-room, which was little better than anouthouse, darling, and I said that KIPLING bit about the upper lip and countedtwenty with the powder and fifty with the lipstick, and then I felt ready foranything, and when I tell you that before I left I had two Jugo-Slovvakians proposing to me at the same time, my dear too Bloomsbury for anything, and such forests of hair both of them, my dearbetween them they could have fitted every woman in the room with kiss-curls anda fringe, beards, of course, and I don''t think either of them had struck soap sincethe French Revolution, and really, my dear, to judge by the foreigners onemeets in London, well, Europe must be an insanitary Continent, however,all this was later, well, it was a studio, of course, and you never saw so manypeople who looked like prawns , of course one cannons into prawns everywhere,but you never see a complete prawnery, if you understand me, well I think nearlyeverybody there had gills , and all the women were the same shape ,one or two younger ones came in but you could see them growing more and more prawny under the influence, my dear too scientific and ghastly, as forthe pictures, they were nothing but the most tuberculous green womenwith triangular legs and blue hair, and always something infectious inthe background like a stove-pipe or a bowler-hat, really darling I do thinkModern art is a bit septic don''t you? Well,I asked my hairy loves who all the prawns were and everything and it turned outnearly everybody there was modelling in wax or did secret pottery or something,and it made me feel so utterly sterile I nearly cried, so just to get myown back I told Blackbeard just what I thought about the pictures, and, what wasso disheartening , he told me half of them had been done by Redbeard whoof course was listening hard with both gills , so I had to tell RedbeardI simply venerated his half of the pictures only I didn''t know whichthey were, and of course it turned out that all the most emerald womenwere his, and what with the effort of pretending I preferred to see women withlegs like fragments from a Gorgonzola , well, really I began to understandhow people who live this sort of life all the time grow feelers and gills andthings and I began to feel a bit crustacean myself. Well,my dear, by this time both beards were completely bristling with passionand I wasn''t a bit sure they hadn''t both got bombs in their bosoms, and besidesthere seemed to be an outbreak of prawn-fever or something becausenearly everybody was sitting on somebody''s knee, and I had a sort of intuition that Redbeard thought it was lowbrow of me not to sit on his knee because thatwas evidently the done thing, only he wore velvet trousers and it wouldn''t havesurprised me if there were mushrooms growing on them, so altogether itwas a moment of trial for your Topsy, but just then up came a perfectly magnetic man called Haddock, a bit brainy to look at perhaps but only the tiniest bitprawny, and not a trace of the Lithuanian, well my dear he''d come to myrescue and he told my two prawns they were wanted to sing Folk-Songs orsomething revolting in the next room, and Mr Slabb or somebody who was the hosthad sent for them. Sothey went off, looking just as if they were going to be tinned , and thisMr Haddock sat down and protected me, well I thought probably he''d been attractedby my intellect, because he looked that kind of man, and I thought ten to onehe''d painted the other pictures which Redbeard hadn''t, so I thought theconversation might be a bit laborious perhaps, but I thought anyhow I''lldie fighting, so I unloaded a few of Blackbeard''s best remarks on Mr Haddock, Isaid what I liked was the Pattern of the picture opposite (which as faras I could see was two green women turning into jelly-fish) and Mr Haddocklooked at it for a long time and then he said ''Yes,'' and I thought perhaps Mumwas right and I''m a clever man''s girl after all, well then I said I thought thepicture of the tomatoes was a good drawing though it wasn''t like ,because that was what Blackbeard said about one of the portraits. Well, mydear, Mr Haddock simply ogled the tomatoes till I thought he''d gone tosleep, but at last he said ''Do you?'' in the most vaccilating way, and Ibegan to think that perhaps he hadn''t painted the pictures after all, but whathe did was pottery, and, then I said that what simply galvanised meabove all things was Significant Form. Well then he looked me in the eyes andhe said what the deuce is that, so then I just tore off the mask and Isaid aren''t you an intelectual because if not I''m wasting my sweetness on thedesert air, so to speak, and he said No and it turned out he''d been terrifiedof me because of my intelect or rather my dressing-gown, and all he does iswrite but I don''t know what, so after that we simply thawed my dear, andI told him about my unspeakable loathing for the entire party,and he said yes but one of the Russian girls wasn''t so bad, so I said yes shewas more prawned against than prawning, which means absolutely zero ,darling, but Mr Haddock seemed to think it was inspired , my dear that''s what I call magnetic in a man, so we slunk out into the night and had anabsolutely brainless supper at Nero''s which was such a relief, only mysandals and dressing-gown gave the secretary such a kick he made us bothhonorary members, I do think men are elastic don''t you, all the samethat''s the last time I seek a soul-mate among the inteligentsia, so no morenow, your worldly little Topsy. 2 The Simple Life Well,night-light of the North, I haven''t a particle of news, but that showsI''m fashionable, you see down here we''re having the most heavenly reaction against all this histeria and the Press and everything, you know allthese pestilent eclipses and Flights and grey-hounds, and my dear that fictitious Wimbledon place, you see nowadays the papers have only to say You must flock to Thingummy or Whatname and we all flock , my dear it''s toogregarious and un-Saxon, and really nobody''s happy this year unless they''re standing in a quue , so we''ve started a perfectly darling movement to avoid excitement, when I tell you that we simply ignored theEclipse but next day we all stayed up and saw an ordinary dawn and, my dear,you''ve no idea what a sedative it was, yet Mr Haddock says this happensnearly every day and not a word about it in the papers, so whenever the papers say that something is too marvellous we band together and shun it, and when I tell you that not one of us have been near the ElectricHare, and Toots cut BETTY NUTHALL dead the other day, and whenever wemeet somebody who''s just flown the Atlantic or needlessly swum something wesimply wither her with a look. Meanwhileof course my cabbage we have our own little amusements and records and things,but all on the most soporific lines my dear, well Toots has acompetition to see who can take the longest to drive up Bon

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