In Brief Authority

«Thomas Anstey Guthrie was an English novelist and journalist, who wrote his comic novels under the pseudonym F. Anstey. Guthrie became an important member of the staff of Punch magazine, in which his voces populi and his humorous parodies of a reciter's stock-piece represent his best work. Many of Anstey's stories have been adapted into theatrical productions, motion pictures. In later life, Anstey spent a good deal of time overseeing dramatizations of his works, and later film adaptations. According to the critics the fantasy of Guthrie's stories is a lighthearted critique of middle-class British society during the Victorian era.

The central idea of this story happened to be connected with the certain characters and occasions of German origin, the author left them constant - because it would be difficult, if not impossible, to substitute any others, but primarily because people couldn’t believe that the nursery friends of our youth could ever be regarded as enemies.»