Max - Softcover

Thurston, Katherine Cecil

3.26

19 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1598189166 ISBN 13: 9781598189162

Publisher: Alan Rodgers Books, 2006

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Such a vessel of inspiration was the powerful north express as it thundered over the sleeping plains of Germany and France on its night journey from Cologne to Paris. A thing of possibilities indeed, with its varying human freight—stolid Teutons, hard-headed Scandinavians, Slavs whom expediency or caprice had forced to descend upon Paris across the sea of ice. It was the month of January, and an unlikely and unlovely night for long and arduous travel. There were few pleasure-passengers on the express, and if one could have looked through the carriage windows, blurred with damp mist, one would have seen upon almost every face the look—resigned or resolute—of those who fare forth by necessity rather than by choice. In the sleeping-cars all the berths were occupied, but here and them throughout the length of the train an occasional traveller slept on the seat of his carriage, wrapped in coats and rugs, while in the dining-saloon a couple of sleepy waiters lurched to and fro in attendance upon a party of three men whose energy precluded the thought of wasting even the night hours and who were playing cards at one of the small tables. Up and down the whole overheated, swaying train there was the suggestion of mystery, of contrast and effect, and the twinkling eyes of the electric lamps seemed to wink from behind their drawn hoods as though they, worldly wise and watchful, saw the individuality—the inevitable story—behind the drowsy units who sat or lay or lounged unguarded beneath them.

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About the Author:

Katherine Cecil Thurston (1875 - 1911) was an Irish novelist, best known for two political thrillers. Born Katherine Cecil Madden in Cork, Ireland, she was privately educated. By the end of the 19th century she was contributing short stories to various British and American publications, such as Pall Mall Magazine, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Harper's Magazine, Windsor Magazine and others. In 1901, she married the writer Ernest Temple Thurston (1879-1933). They separated in 1907 and were divorced in 1910 on grounds of his adultery and desertion. The suit went undefended. Thurston's novels achieved success in both Britain and the United States. Her best-known work was a political thriller entitled John Chilcote, M.P. (as The Masquerader in the United States), published in 1904 and on the New York Times bestseller list for two years. Her next book, The Gambler, came out in 1905 and it too made the US best-selling lists for that year. This was the first time the New York Times had recorded any author, female or male, as having two top-ten books in a single year. In 1910, she was back on the same list at No. 4 with her novel Max, the story of a young Russian princess, who flees disguised as a boy to the Montmartre Quarter of Paris, on the night before her arranged marriage. John Chilcote, M.P. was adapted for the stage by John Hunter Booth and opened on Broadway in 1917. It was filmed four times. An epileptic, Thurston's blossoming career was cut short at the age of 36 when she was found dead in her hotel room in Cork. The official enquiry on September 6, 1911 gave the cause of death as asphyxia as result of a seizure. She had been due to remarry later that month to Dr A. T. Bulkeley Gavin.

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