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. King began writing in 1900 after he was forced to retire from the clergy due to loss of eyesight and thyroid disease. His anonymously published novel The Inner Shrine, about a French Irish girl whose husband is killed in a duel, became very popular when published in 1909. King subsequently published several best-selling works. King's spiritual orientation increased later in his life. The Conquest of Fear (1921) portrayed his own struggle with ill health and eventual spiritual growth and lays out his somewhat mystical approach to religious understanding. Critics often faulted King's fiction for its sentimentality and didacticism.