William King

February 26, 1859 (age 69)

Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada

From 1884 to 1892 King served as curate and rector of St. Luke's Pro-Cathedral in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and from 1892 to 1900, as rector of Christ Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Because of ill health, accompanied by failing eyesight, he abandoned his ecclesiastical career in 1900, and devoted the rest of his life to writing. Although continuing to reside in Cambridge, he spent much of his time in Europe. The first novel to win a wide popularity was The Inner Shrine, which was published anonymously. His subsequent stories were almost invariably "best-sellers. " It cannot be claimed that his novels achieve a high distinction. His prose style is undistinguished; his plots are little more than ingenious mechanisms; his characters rarely come to life. Written with a frankly moral purpose, his fiction is too often ponderously didactic or mawkishly sentimental. He was particularly anxious to demonstrate the sanctity of marriage and the evils of agnosticism. It is not likely that his novels will be read in the future, except perhaps by students of popular literary taste. During the last decade of his life, King wrote eight "serious" books, dealing with psychological, religious, and spiritualistic subjects from the point of view of his own personal experience. Two of these, The Abolishing of Death (1919), and The Conquest of Fear (1921), are of particular interest. During the First World War, his attention was attracted to spiritualistic phenomena, and in The Abolishing of Death he gave an account of messages received from a great chemist, fictitiously named Henry Talbot, through the mediumistic agency of a young girl called Jennifer, who was in reality King's daughter Penelope. The Conquest of Fear is largely a record of his own courageous struggle, prolonged over a period of nearly thirty years, against physical infirmities--failing eyesight and a disease of the thyroid gland. The continued popularity of this book is attested by the fact that thirty thousand copies were sold in 1930. It is possible that in the modern neurasthenic world this authentic record of a personal experience may continue to attract many who will find in Basil King's life and counsel an aid in the conquest of fear.

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The Giant's Strength

Let Not Man Put Asunder: A Novel

( This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)

The Way Home: A Novel (Classic Reprint)

(Excerpt from The Way Home: A Novel Charlie Grace was bor...)

Excerpt from The Way Home: A Novel Charlie Grace was born in the old rectory. It was called the old rectory as early as 1874, though it was one of Robertson's creations, dating only from the fifties. As an expression of architectural taste it was inspired by the Oxford Movement, and the Gothic Revival as then under stood. It is a matter of history that Robertson took Amiens Cathedral as his model for St David's Church, and as an Amiens Cathedral in Connecticut brownstone, dwarfed, denuded and deformed, bearing to its original the relation of a wizened baby to a full-grown man, it stands. For the rectory Robertson got his idea from an English deanery, edifying the New York of his day with a repro duction which was held to be truly ecclesiastical. Charlie Grace's first impressions were, therefore, of doors with pointed arches and corridors artificially vaulted. It was in a dining-room with early English windows adapting themselves awkwardly to muslin curtains and pots of jonquils in Spring, that he first heard mention made of the Colorado Plains. His father had been reading to his mother a letter of the kind familiar to well-disposed persons as an appeal. Mapleton is not a town; it is only a region where the shacks are nearer together than elsewhere. My wife and I find it a convenient centre for our work, while the school, elementary though it is, offers some opportunities to our children. We suffer chieﬂy, not from lack of food and shelter, but from want of books, clothing and household necessities. There is no town nearer than Proctor, at which we can purchase anything. Our children miss the natural amusements of youth, for the country in itself possesses few resources in that direction. You must understand that the plains are not really plains at all, but great sand-dunes. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The high heart

(This book, "The high heart", by King Basil, is a replicat...)

The Wild Olive

The Street Called Straight (TREDITION CLASSICS)

(This book is part of the TREDITION CLASSICS series. The c...)

The Letter of the Contract

The Side Of The Angels: A Novel

(The Side of the Angels is definitely a different sort of ...)

GRISELDA

(A Novel, 1900. 362 pages.)

The Inner Shrine

William Benjamin Basil King Edit Profile

clergyman novelist

Background

Basil King was born on February 26, 1859 at Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. His parents were William and Mary Anne Lucretia King.

Education

William attended St. Peter's School in Charlottetown, and the University of King's College in Windsor, Nova Scotia, where he was graduated in 1881.

Career

From 1884 to 1892 King served as curate and rector of St. Luke's Pro-Cathedral in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and from 1892 to 1900, as rector of Christ Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Because of ill health, accompanied by failing eyesight, he abandoned his ecclesiastical career in 1900, and devoted the rest of his life to writing. Although continuing to reside in Cambridge, he spent much of his time in Europe.

The first novel to win a wide popularity was The Inner Shrine, which was published anonymously. His subsequent stories were almost invariably "best-sellers. " It cannot be claimed that his novels achieve a high distinction. His prose style is undistinguished; his plots are little more than ingenious mechanisms; his characters rarely come to life. Written with a frankly moral purpose, his fiction is too often ponderously didactic or mawkishly sentimental. He was particularly anxious to demonstrate the sanctity of marriage and the evils of agnosticism. It is not likely that his novels will be read in the future, except perhaps by students of popular literary taste.

During the last decade of his life, King wrote eight "serious" books, dealing with psychological, religious, and spiritualistic subjects from the point of view of his own personal experience. Two of these, The Abolishing of Death (1919), and The Conquest of Fear (1921), are of particular interest. During the First World War, his attention was attracted to spiritualistic phenomena, and in The Abolishing of Death he gave an account of messages received from a great chemist, fictitiously named Henry Talbot, through the mediumistic agency of a young girl called Jennifer, who was in reality King's daughter Penelope.

The Conquest of Fear is largely a record of his own courageous struggle, prolonged over a period of nearly thirty years, against physical infirmities--failing eyesight and a disease of the thyroid gland. The continued popularity of this book is attested by the fact that thirty thousand copies were sold in 1930. It is possible that in the modern neurasthenic world this authentic record of a personal experience may continue to attract many who will find in Basil King's life and counsel an aid in the conquest of fear.

Achievements

During his literary career, Basil King wrote twenty novels. The following books may be taken as representative of their author's talent in this genre: Let Not Man Put Asunder (1901), The Steps of Honor (1904), The Inner Shrine (1909), The Street Called Straight (1912), The Side of the Angels (1916), and The Happy Isles (1923).