[Ernest Temple]. English novelist, born at Halesworth, Suffolk, on the 23rd of September 1879. At the age of sixteen he published two volumes of verse. Two years later he published his first novel, The Apple of Eden (1897; republished, 1905), followed by Traffic (1906); The Evolution of Katherine (1907); The Realist (1907); and two widely differing but very successful novels, Sally Bishop (1908) and the City of Beautiful Nonsense (1909). His later work includes, on the realistic side, The Antagonists (1912) and Richard Furlong (1913); and on the sentimental side The Greatest Wish in the World (1910); The Garden of Resurrection (1911); Enchantment (1917) and The World of Wonderful Reality (1920). He dramatized his wife’s novel, John Chilcote, M.P. and one or two of his own, and wrote also, as original plays, Driven and The Cost (1914), and The Wandering Jew (1920).
His wife, Katherine Cecil Thurston (1875–1911), was born at Cork, the daughter of Mr. Paul Madden. She married Mr. Thurston in 1901, but in 1910 her marriage was dissolved on her own petition. She was well known as a writer of novels, notably The Circle (1903); John Chilcote, M.P. (1904); The Gambler (1906) and The Fly on the Wheel (1908). The second of these, a study of dual personality, created a considerable stir, both as a novel and as a play. She died at Cork on the 6th of September 1911.
