William Benjamin Basil King (1859–1928) was a Canadian clergyman who became a writer after retiring from the clergy. His novels and non-fiction were spiritually oriented.
Born in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, King graduated from the University of King’s College, Windsor, Nova Scotia. He served as an Anglican rector at St. Luke’s Pro-Cathedral in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and later at Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Failing eyesight and thyroid disease forced King to resign from his ministry in 1900, and he devoted the rest of his life to travel and to write. His early novels—Griselda (1900,) Let Not Man Put Asunder (1901,) In the Garden of Charity (1903,) The Steps of Honour (1904,) and The Giant’s Strength (1907)—became famous only after they were reprinted after his two consecutive best-sellers, The Inner Shrine (1909) and The Wild Olive (1910.)
King’s religious orientation increased later in his life. The Abolishing of Death (1919) described communication with a dead chemist. His best-known religious-philosophical work, The Conquest of Fear (1921,) portrayed his struggle with ill health and his eventual spiritual growth and outlined his mystical approach to spiritual understanding.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Basil King
Go at it boldly, and you’ll find unexpected forces closing round you and coming to your aid.
—Basil King
Topics: Danger, Strength, Courage, Risk
Victory becomes, to some degree, a state of mind. Knowing ourselves superior to the anxieties, troubles, and worries which obsess us, we are superior to them.
—Basil King
Topics: Victory, Success
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