Katherine Cecil Thurston (1875-1911) was an Irish-born novelist and playwright who wrote many bestselling novels including The Circle (1903), The Masquerader (1904), The Gambler (1905), The Mystics (1907), The Fly on the Wheel (1908) and Max (1910), all of which have been dramatised. She achieved her first real success with The Masquerader, a bestseller in 1904 and 1905. It tells the story of a distinguished member of Parliament who, through excessive indulgence, nearly ruins his political career and his homelife and so persuades his cousin to double for him when he can not cope. Her next book, The Gambler also made the list of bestselling novels in the United States for 1905. It marked the first time the New York Times recorded any author, female or male, as having two top ten books in a single year. In 1910, she was back on the New York Times best selling books of the year list at number 4 with her novel, Max, the story of a young Russian princess, who, disguised as a boy, flees to the Montmartre Quarter of Paris the night before her arranged marriage. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.