Katherine Cecil Thurston, best selling Edwardian era author, was born Kathleen Annie Josephine Madden in Cork on April 18th, 1874. Her family circumstances were comfortable, her nationalist father Paul Madden was a banker and served twice as mayor of Cork City.
In 1901 Katherine married Ernest Temple Thurston (1879 - 1933) in what proved to be a stormy relationship. The couple split their time between home in Ardmore, Waterford and Kensington, London.
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In 1903 Thurston published her first novel, The Circle which was followed by the 1903 John Chilcote, MP. The latter proved to be a commercial smash and was subsequently published in America as The Masquerader. The American edition of the book proved to be a bestseller as did the subsequent novel, The Gambler published in 1905. John Chilcote, MP was adapted for the London stage with a script by the author's husband in 1905 and the staying power of the book is attested to by a 1917 Broadway staging in New York.
Further success followed which caused tensions in Katerine's marriage and her husband left the relationship in December 1907. A painful divorce, no doubt complicated by her Catholic beliefs, followed in 1910 on the grounds of desertion.
Despite the unwelcome notoriety associated with her martital difficulties, Thurston continued to work and formed a new and happier relationship with Alfred Thomas Bulkeley Gavin. The couple were engaged to be married but sadly the wedding never happened as Thurston died in Cork from asphyxia induced by epilepsy at the age of 37 on September 5th, 1907.
Thurston and her literary legacy are no longer well remembered. She is an important figure in Irish literature, bringing a female voice and writing on obsessive love, suicide, prostitution and other matters not frequently aired during her lifetime
