I was reading Florence Lamborn's translation, from Swedish, of Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking (the translation appears to date from 1950). I read the following sentence:
… Just at that moment the gate of one of the cottages nearby opened
and a boy came rushing out. He looked scared, and that was no wonder,
because head over heels after him came five other boys. … (emphasis mine)
I had never seen the phrase "head over heels" to mean, as it seems to from this context, "immediately after." I looked it up and found, in my Shorter Oxford, and on dictionary.com, only the meanings I already knew (topsy-turvy and intensely infatuated). On Wiktionary I did find this second definition, which does seem to fit the sentence:
At top speed; frantically
This question and this question both discuss "head over heels" but not with this meaning. Is it commonly recognized, today? And is it more British English? (I do not know, but assume that the translator of this edition was British, based on other expressions in the book).
Best Answer
None of Webster, ODO, Collins, or MacMillan lists "At top speed; frantically" as a possible definition of "head over heels". They only note the two definitions that the OP is familiar with. However, I can imagine without any great difficulty that frantic top-speed running could well involve chaotic stumbling and tumbling, and vice versa. So, it's not all that much of a stretch.
This could easily have been written by Stephen Fry with wholly different connotations.