Written around 120 years ago, Katherine Cecil Thurston’s novels dealt with various themes, including love, addiction, adultery and gambling. The Cork-born author achieved fame in her short lifetime but her life and work seem to have been almost completely forgotten.
Born in Cork city in April 1875, she was an only child and was educated at home. Her father, Paul J Madden, was a director of the Munster and Leinster Bank and the Cork Gas Company. He also served as lord mayor of Cork in 1885-86.
She married Ernest Temple Thurston at a Catholic church in London in 1901. He was an English-born writer who had lived in Cork since the 1890s. Katherine began to write short stories around 1901 and her husband suggested that she write a novel.
Her first novel The Circle was published in 1903. It dealt with the trials of an immigrant from eastern Europe who hopes to become an actress in London. It was serialised initially in magazines in Britain and America and she dedicated the book to her husband.
Her second novel, John Chilcote, MP, proved to be a great hit on both sides of the Atlantic. Dubbed “the novel of the season”, it sold hundreds of thousands of copies. She wrote it in her summer home Maycroft in Ardmore, Co Waterford.
The political thriller told the story of a leading British politician who was addicted to drugs. The eponymous character comes face to face with his doppelganger in a chance meeting on a foggy night in London. He recruits this lookalike (who happens to be his cousin) to take his place. The addicted Chilcote dies by overdose and his wife decides to live with the doppelganger. This led to much debate in the press at the time about the morality of the situation.
In a sign of the book’s overall popularity, it was adapted for the stage and the screen on several occasions. The first stage adaptation came in 1905 in London and was written by Thurston’s husband. A film adaptation was released in 1933 with the English actor Ronald Colman playing the lead role. It was called The Masquerader, the title that was used for the US edition of Thurston’s book.
There were very few cars on the roads when the Thurstons had their 1905 Léon Bollée car brought over from England for use in Ireland. Even though they employed a chauffeur, both husband and wife often enjoyed driving it. They must have cut quite a dash motoring down the roads of Cork and Waterford in their distinctive vehicle with its blue leather trim and KTC monogram.
The couple divided their time between a home in London’s Kensington and the home in Ardmore but the marriage did not last. They separated in 1907 and she filed for divorce on the grounds of desertion and misconduct.
One newspaper reported that her husband “insisted on living in the slums of Soho, for the purpose of writing a novel”. Court reports from the time state that he complained that she was earning more money than he was and that “her personality was dominating him”.
She produced several other books including The Fly on the Wheel which was set in Waterford and dealt with the theme of illicit love. Her last novel Max featured a cross-dressing female heroine.
By 1911, she was engaged to be married again. Her fiancé was a doctor named Alfred Thomas Bulkeley Gavin. Sadly, she died one month before the marriage was supposed to take place. In September 1911, she was visiting Cork city from her home in Ardmore. She attended the races and had a Turkish bath before returning to Moore’s Hotel on Morrisson’s Island where she was staying.
She was found dead in her hotel room by a chambermaid the following morning. She was just 36 years old. Her fiancé was the co-executor and chief beneficiary of her will. She had been known to have epileptic fits. An inquest was held that afternoon and a verdict of accidental death was returned. The cause of death was asphyxia. Her death at such a young age gave rise to speculation that she might have been murdered or that she may have taken her own life. However, without any concrete evidence this seems like nothing more than conjecture and would be worthy of one of her novels.
Historian and former county librarian for Waterford Donald Brady described Thurston as one of the “most interesting and rewarding subjects” that he ever studied.
Brady produced a short biography of Thurston in 2017 entitled Katherine Cecil Thurston 1874-1911: Irish New Woman Author.
He stated that apart from interest about her in academic circles, he found it “inexcusable” that there was a “total absence of knowledge of her contribution to our literary heritage”.
