E. Temple Thurston

Self-portrait of E. Temple Thurston

Ernest Temple Thurston (September 23, 1879 – March 19, 1933) was an Anglo-Irish poet, playwright and author.

Biography

Thurston was born in Halesworth, Suffolk, England. At age ten, his family moved to Cork. In 1901 he married the popular novelist, Katherine Cecil Madden, (1875-1911). The marriage did not last, however. They were separated in 1907, and formally divorced in 1910.

Thurston wrote a total of forty books, from which seventeen motion pictures were made. In addition, he authored several theatrical plays, three of which were performed on Broadway and four of which were made into motion pictures. His best known work for the stage is The Wandering Jew, a play in four parts which was performed on Broadway in 1921. The play was made into a film of the same name in 1923, and reproduced in 1933. His third wife, Emily, published the play as a novel in 1934.

His most successful books include The City of Beautiful Nonsense (1909) and The Flower of Gloster (1911), a story about a canal journey in England. Two film versions of The City of Beautiful Nonsense were made: a silent version in 1919, and a sound version in 1935.

He died from influenza and pneumonia in London in 1933.

In 1967, Granada TV broadcast a 13-part children's serial called The Flower of Gloster, an updated version of Thurston's original. The serial was followed a few years later by a book of the same name, authored by the serial's producer Bill Grundy.^[1]

Bibliography

• The Apple of Eden (1905)
• Katherine (1905)
• Traffic, The story of a faithful woman (1906)
• Mirage (1908)
• The City of Beautiful Nonsense (1909, Toronto, Musson)
• The Apple of Eden (1910)
• The Greatest Wish in the World (1910)
• Sally Bishop, a Romance (1910)
• The Patchwork Papers (1910)
• The Garden of Resurrection (1911)
• The Flower of Gloster (1911)
• The Antagonists (1912)
• Thirteen (1912)
• The Open Window (1913)
• Richard Furlong (1913)
• The Achievement (1914)
• The passionate crime; a tale of a faerie (1915)
• The Five-barred Gate (1916)
• Enchantment (1917)
• The Nature of the Beast (1918)
• David & Jonathan (1918)
• Sheepskins & Grey Russet (1919)
• The World of Wonderful Reality (1919)
• The Green Bough (1921)
• The Eye of the Wift (1922)
• The Miracle (1922)
• Judas Iscariot; a play in four acts (1923)
• A Roof and Four Walls, a comedy in four acts (1923)
• May Eve (1923)
• Charmeuse (1924)
• Mr. Bottleby Does Something (1925)
• Snobs; a farcical comedy in one act (1925)
• The Goose-feather Bed (1926)
• Jane Carroll (1927)
• Millennium (1927)
• Portrait of a Spy (1929)
• Man in a Black Hat (1930)
• The Broken Heart (1932)
• A Hank of Hair (1932)
• The Diamond Pendant (1932)

Broadway plays:

• Driven (1914)
• The Wandering Jew (1921)
• The Blue Peter (1925)

References

External links

• Works by Ernest Temple Thurston at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about E. Temple Thurston at Internet Archive
• Works by E. Temple Thurston at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• E. Temple Thurston at the Internet Movie Database
• E. Temple Thurston at the Internet Broadway Database