Sutro was born in London, the third and youngest son of Sigismund Sutro, a medical practitioner and authority on continental spas and their cures. Sutro senior, who was of German and Spanish
Sephardic ancestry, had come to England from Germany as a young man and become a British subject. Alfred's grandfather was a
rabbi. Sutro was educated at the
City of London School and in Brussels. Sutro's other Maeterlinck translations, some made jointly with his friend
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos, include
Aglavaine and Selysette,
Joyzelle,
The Life of the White Ant,
The Buried Temple,
Monna Vanna,
The Death of Tintagiles, and
The Magic of the Stars. Sutro's own work was chiefly as a playwright. After many false starts he achieved a moderate success in 1895 with
The Chili Widow, an adaptation of a French work, made jointly with
Arthur Bourchier. It ran for 423 performances, and established Sutro among the leading English dramatists. Sutro also published a volume of stories (
The Foolish Virgins, 1904), a collection of sketches (
About Women, 1931), and a volume of memoirs, (
Celebrities and Simple Souls, 1933). Sutro died after a few days' illness at his home in
Witley, Surrey, on 11 September 1933. His widow died the following year. They had no children. ==Notes==