attended. Afterwards, the couple slipped away in a car before crowds had time to gather. 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 based on the legend written in four parts, which was performed on Broadway in 1921. The play was adapted for a silent film of the same name in 1923, and a sound remake was released in 1933. His third wife, Emily, published the play as a novel in 1934. At the end of February 1933, Thurston was taken ill after a game of golf in Rye. He was diagnosed with lumbago and influenza, symptoms further complicated by pneumonia, and he died at his home in Maida Vale on 19 March 1933. His wife, Emily, died in 1984. Books 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. Two film versions of The City of Beautiful Nonsense were made: a silent version in 1919, and a sound version in 1935. In 1929, a play he had adapted from his book Portrait of a Spy was banned by the Lord Chamberlain. 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. Legacy In 1967, Granada Television 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. Bibliography The Apple of Eden (Chapman & Hall, 1905) The Evolution of Katherine (1905) Traffic, The story of a faithful woman (George Newnes, 1906) The Realist & other stories (Sisley's Ltd, 1906) Mirage (Methuen, 1908) The City of Beautiful Nonsense (Newnes, 1909) The Apple of Eden (1910) The Greatest Wish in the World (Chapman & Hall, 1910) Sally Bishop, a Romance (1910) The Patchwork Papers (Chapman & Hall, 1910)