According to Wikipedia: "William Benjamin Basil King (1859-1928) was a Canadian-born 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 a number of best-selling works."