The family moved from Halesworth to Maidstone and then, after the death of Georgina in 1895, left England to live with Thurston Snr's mother in Ballintemple, Cork.

For many years, Temple Thurston found it difficult to make a living from writing and worked as a yeast merchant, brewer, research chemist, and commercial traveller before finally becoming a reporter.

His first novel, The Apple of Eden was issued in a rewritten form in 1905, but it was not until the success of The City of Beautiful Nonsense, published by Newnes in 1909, that he found some kind of stability.

Objecting to the fact that the two of them were "on friendly terms", Mrs Thurston left for a holiday in India, hoping that it would give her husband time to "get over it".

Thurston's most successful books include The City of Beautiful Nonsense (1909) and The Flower of Gloster (1911), a story about a canal journey in England.

Based on the WWI exploits of Dutch spy Mata Hari, the play had been set to open at the London Coliseum until the ban was announced a couple of weeks before.

Since the book itself had attracted little controversy, Temple Thurston suspected that the establishment had had some late thoughts about offending the French, who had executed the spy.