Called "the screwball's Boswell" by Fred Allen, H. Allen Smith achieved overnight success as a humorist with the publication of Low Man on a Totem Pole in 1941. Turning out sequels at the rate of nearly one a year, he was rarely off the best-seller lists during the 1940s. Between 1941 and 1946, his works reportedly sold 1.4 million copies. Though his output, sales, and reputation declined during his later years, his numerous books, essays, and articles were more than enough to establish him in the front rank of the American humorists of his day. Smith also built a reputation as a real-life character, who purportedly took the first legal drink after Prohibition, "kidnapped" Albert Einstein from a banquet in his honor, and once greeted the austere J.P. Morgan with a jaunty "Hiya, toots!"

One of nine children, Harry Allen Smith was born on 19 December 1907, in McLeansboro, Illinois, to Catholic parents...