He is best known today for the two Topper novels, comic fantasy fiction involving sex, much drinking and ghosts.

Smith was born in Annapolis, Maryland, the son of a Navy commodore, and attended Dartmouth College.

In 1919, after being discharged from the Navy the same year, he moved to Greenwich Village, where he met Celia Sullivan whom he would marry.

He was an early resident of Free Acres, a social experimental community developed by Bolton Hall according to the economic principles of Henry George, in Berkeley Heights, New Jersey.

[4] Skin and Bones, Turnabout, The Night Life of the Gods, The Passionate Witch, The Stray Lamb, The Bishop's Jaegers, The Glorious Pool, and Rain in the Doorway were all published by Armed Services Editions.