Kenrick (William), LL.D., English author, b. near Watford, Herts, about 1720. In 1751 he published, at Dublin, under the pen-name of Ontologos, an essay to prove that the soul is not immortal. His first poetic production was a volume of Epistles, Philosophical and Moral (1759), addressed to Lorenzo; an avowed defence of scepticism. In 1775 he commenced the London Review, and the following year attacked Soame Jenyns’s work on Christianity. He translated some of the works of Buffon, Rousseau, and Voltaire. Died 10 June 1779.
Kerr (Michael Crawford) American statesman, b. Titusville, Western Pennsylvania, 15 March 1827. He was member of the Indiana Legislature ’56, and elected to Congress in ’74 and endeavoured to revise the tariff in the direction of free-trade. Died Rockbridge, Virginia, 19 Aug. 1876, a confirmed Freethinker and Materialist.
Ket, Kett, or Knight (Francis), of Norfolk, a relative of the rebellious tanner. He was of Windham and was an M.A. He was prosecuted for heresy and burnt in the castle ditch, Norwich, 14 Jan. 1588. Stowe says he was burnt for “divers detestable opinions against Christ our Saviour.”
Khayyam (Omar) or Umar Khaiyam, Persian astronomer, poet, b. Naishapur Khorassan, in the second half of the eleventh century, and was distinguished by his reformation of the calendar as well as by his verses (Rubiyat), which E. Fitzgerald has so finely rendered in English. He alarmed his contemporaries and made himself obnoxious to the Sufis. Died about 1123. Omar laughed at the prophets and priests, and told men to be happy instead of worrying themselves about God and the Hereafter. He makes his soul say, “I myself am Heaven and Hell.”
Kielland (Alexander Lange), Norwegian novelist, b. Stavanger, 18 Feb. 1849. He studied law at Christiania, but never practised. His stories, Workpeople, Skipper Worse, Poison, and Snow exhibit his bold opinions.
Kleanthes. See Cleanthes.
Klinger (Friedrich Maximilian von), German writer, b. Frankfort, 19 Feb. 1753. Went to Russia in 1780, and became reader to the Grand Duke Paul. Published poems, dramas, and romances, exhibiting the revolt of nature against conventionality. Goethe called him “a true apostle of the Gospel of nature.” Died at Petersburg, 25 Feb. 1831.
Kneeland (Abner), American writer, b. Gardner, Mass., 7 April, 1774, became a Baptist and afterwards a Universalist minister. He invented a new system of orthography, published a translation of the New Testament, 1823, The Deist (2 Vols.), ’22, edited the Olive Branch and the Christian Inquirer. He wrote The Fourth Epistle of Peter, ’29, and a Review of the Evidences of Christianity, being a series of lectures delivered in New York in ’29. In that year he removed to Boston, and in April ’31 commenced the Boston Investigator, the oldest Freethought journal. In ’33 he was indicted and tried for blasphemy for saying that he “did not believe in the God which Universalists did.” He was sentenced 21 Jan. ’34, to two months’ imprisonment and fine of five hundred dollars. The verdict was confirmed in the Courts of Appeal in ’36, and he received two months’ imprisonment. Kneeland was a Pantheist. He took Frances Wright as an associate editor, and soon after left the Boston Investigator in the hands of P. Mendum and Seaver, and retired to a farm at Salubria, where he died 27 August, 1844. His edition, with notes, of Voltaire’s Philosophical Dictionary, was published in two volumes in 1852.
Knoblauch (Karl von), German author, b. Dillenburg, 3 Nov. 1757. He was a friend of Mauvillon and published several works directed against supernaturalism and superstition. Died at Bernburg, 6 Sept. 1794.
Knowlton (Charles) Dr., American physician and author, b. Templeton, Mass., 10 May, 1800. He published the Fruits of Philosophy, for which he was imprisoned in ’32. He was a frequent correspondent of the Boston Investigator, and held a discussion on the Bible and Christianity with the Rev. Mr. Thacher of Harley. About ’29 he published The Elements of Modern Materialism. Died in Winchester, Mass., 20 Feb. 1850.