Leo Perutz began writing 'Mayflower' before his 1938 emigration from Austria to Palestine and abandoned the work in 1945.
Notes on verification
Core biographical facts (1938 emigration) are well corroborated, but the specific dating of when 'Mayflower' was begun and abandoned in 1945 derives from a single scholar's (Leon Ratermann) archival research at the DNB, not independently cross-verified by a second source.