Popular Authors in 1909

William Benjamin Basil King (1859-1928) was a Canadian-born clergyman who began to write after retirement from the clergy. His novels and non-fiction were spiritual in nature. He was the most popular author in 1909 with the number one bestseller for that year, The Inner Shrine.

Born on February 26, 1859, in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island. King graduated from the University of King's College in Nova Scotia, and served as an Episcopal rector at St. Luke's Pro-Cathedral in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and later at Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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.

King's spiritual orientation increased later in his life. His The Abolishing of Death (1919) described the transmission of messages from a deceased chemist. 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 Kings fiction for its sentimentality and didacticism.

He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts on June 22, 1928.

Other works by Basil King include:

Griselda (1900)
The Inner Shrine (1909)
The Wild Olive (1910)
The Street Called Straight (1912)
The Way Home (1913)
The Side of the Angels (1916)
The High Heart (1917)
Abraham's Bosom (1918)
The Abolishing of Death (1919)
The Thread of Flame (1920)
The Conquest of Fear (1921)
The Dust Flower (1922)
The Discovery of God (1923)
The Happy Isles (1923)
The Bible and Common Sense (1924)

Image Credit: Personal scan of a book in my inventory

According to the Publishers Weekly these were the other nine popular authors and their books that reached the best seller status for the year 1909.

* Katrine by Elinor Macartney Lane

* The Silver Horde by Rex Beach

* The Man in Lower Ten by Mary Roberts Rinehart

* The Trail of the Lonesome Pine by John Fox, Jr.

* Truxton King by George Barr McCutcheon

* 54-40 or Fight by Emerson Hough

* The Goose Girl by Harold MacGrath

* Peter by F. Hopkinson Smith

* Septimus by William J. Locke

Image Credit: Personal photo of the book Truxton King: A Story of Graustark from my pesonal collection of books

A Good Book Giclee Print
Firle, Sir Walter
24 in. x 18 in.
Buy at AllPosters.com

Amazingly these books and their authors were not on the best seller list in 1909:

The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum

Anne of Avonlea by Lucy Maude Montgomery

A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton Porter

I can't guarantee that you will find any of the books from the authors of 1909 on a NOOK, but there are many old books that have been made into a digital copy to be read on a digital reader tablet.

Copyright for Popular Authors In 1909: June 24, 2009 by BevsPaper (Beverly Owens)