Background
Robertson was born on August 28, 1913 in Thamesville, Ontario. The son of William Rupert Davies and Florence Sheppard Davies (nee Mackay).
(At two minutes to six on December 27th 1908 the lives of ...)
At two minutes to six on December 27th 1908 the lives of three people become inextricably bound together by the trajectory of a snowball. There is ten-year old Dunstable Ramsay, intended victim of the snowball, who, fatefully, ducks; his 'lifelong friend and enemy' Percy Boyd Staunton, angered by their recent quarrel, who hurls the snowball; and Paul Dempster, prematurely born when his pregnant mother is struck by Percy's icy missile. Tracing the rich and varied lives of these three individuals, "The Deptford Trilogy" lures the reader down labyrinthine tunnels of myth, history and magic in one of the most beguiling, clever and cunning trilogies ever written.
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(The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost Leaven of Malice a Mi...)
The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost Leaven of Malice a Mixture of Frailties Paperback Nov 01, 1991 Robertson Davies
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(The enthusiasm of Robertson Davies for the spirit of Mr P...)
The enthusiasm of Robertson Davies for the spirit of Mr Punch has taken witty form in this entertainment which Dr Davies wrote for the Preparatory School boys of Upper Canada College, Toronto. The incidents associated with the traditional Punch Show are all here, but they are witnessed and criticized by uncomprehending spokesmen for the modern theatre - newspaper critics, television producers, one playwright representing the school of "American Southern Decadence" and a member of the Board of Directors of the Stratford Festival. Mr Punch is not at all confounded by their cherished believes, even when each spokesman tries to bring him up to date in his own way. But Mr Punch will not be changed, and he emerges triumphant at the end, having been told of a whole new world to conquer.
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(, defrocked monks, mad professors, and wealthy eccentrics...)
, defrocked monks, mad professors, and wealthy eccentrics-a remarkable cast peoples Robertson Davies' brilliant spectacle of theft, perjury, murder, scholarship, and love at a modern university. Only Mr. Davies, author of Fifth Business, The Manticore, and World of Wonders, could have woven together their destinies with such wit, humour-and wisdom.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0670590630/?tag=2022091-20
(In the small university town of Salterton, Ontario, dream...)
In the small university town of Salterton, Ontario, dreams are quietly taking shape, or falling apart. There's the Salterton Little Theatre Company, in which professional director Valentine Rich is tormented by the amateurish efforts of his actors. The families Vambrace and Bridgetower almost go to war over a fake notice of engagement in the local paper. And a family fortune is lavished on an aspiring singer because there is no male heir to claim it. Tracing the lives and incidents of a small community in the middle of the last century, "The Salterton Trilogy" peels off the public veneer of geniality and respectability to reveal the private passions simmering beneath.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0241952638/?tag=2022091-20
(A Mixture of Frailties, the third volume of Robertson Dav...)
A Mixture of Frailties, the third volume of Robertson Davies Salterton Trilogy, is his first extended engagement with one of the great neuroses of Canadian culture: Canada's artistic relationship to Europe, and particularly to Britain. Davies begins his story with the funeral of Louisa Bridgetower, the Salterton matron whose imposing presence ranges throughout the earlier volumes of the ''Salterton'' Trilogy. The substantial income from her estate is to be used to send an unmarried young woman to Europe to pursue an education in the arts. Mrs. Bridgetower's executors end up selecting Monica Gall, an almost entirely unschooled singer whose sole experience comes from performing with the Heart and Hope Gospel Quartet, a rough outfit sponsored by a small fundamentalist group. Monica soon finds herself in England, a pupil of some of Britain's most remarkable teachers and composers, and she gradually blossoms from a Canadian rube to a cosmopolitan soprano with a unique - and tragicomic - career. ''It's a muddle'', thought Monica. ''A muddle and I can't get it straight. I wish I knew what I should do. I wish I even knew what I want to do...I want to go on in the life that has somehow or other found me and claimed me. And I want so terribly to be happy. Oh god, don't let me slip under the surface of all the heavy-hearted dullness that seems to claim so many people....'' A Mixture of Frailties is so much more than the story of Monica Gall's life in London and her education as a singer. It is an account of her education as a human being, and the result is an absorbing novel, comic in the true sense, vivid and frequently moving.
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("A Mixture of Frailties is so much more than the story of...)
"A Mixture of Frailties is so much more than the story of Monica Gall's life in London and her education as a singer. It is an account of her education as a human being, and the result is an absorbing novel, comic in the true sense, vivid and frequently moving."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HT97IK/?tag=2022091-20
(People who do not know Salterton call it dreamy and old w...)
People who do not know Salterton call it dreamy and old world. they say it is the place where Anglican clergymen go when they die. The real Saltertonians, however, know that there is nothing quaint about the place at all. With its two cathedrals, its one university, and its native sons and daughters busily scheming for their dreams, Salterton is very much in the real world. 'Ingenious, erudite, entertaining ...Davies displays all the qualities of a latter-day. Trollope and shows us what modern Canada is like' - Anthony Burgess in the "Observer Books of the Year".
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(The following announcement appeared in the Salterton Even...)
The following announcement appeared in the Salterton Evening Bellman: "Professor and Mrs. Walter Vambrace are pleased to announce the engagement of their daughter, Pearl Veronica, to Solomon Bridgetower, Esq., son of ..." Although the malice that prompted the insertion of this false engagement notice was aimed at three people only - Solly Bridgetower, a junior instructor in English at Waverly University; Pearl Vambrace, the subdued daughter of a domineering professor; and Gloster Ridley, the anxiety-ridden editor of the Evening Bellman - the leaven of malice will change permanently, for good or ill, the lives of many of the citizens of Salterton. Robertson Davies jumps at the opportunity this situation provides to create memorable characters and lasting impressions.
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(Outlining the delights of reading, the author tells of wh...)
Outlining the delights of reading, the author tells of what mass education has done to readers, to taste, to books and to culture. The book covers writers from various countries and old and recently-published books, both well-known and obscure. From the author of "What's Bred in the Bone".
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140120815/?tag=2022091-20
("Stories, lectures, jeux d'esprit, and advice on writing ...)
"Stories, lectures, jeux d'esprit, and advice on writing and writers, books, and literature ---" This is an excellent introduction to the gifted Canadian man of letters. CONTENTS: Preface; Ham and Tongue; Garlands and Nosegays; Giving Advice; Jeux d'esprit; Thoughts about Writing; Masks of Satan; The Canada of Myth and Reality. 286+ pages.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140049673/?tag=2022091-20
( Robertson Davies has been called the most important Can...)
Robertson Davies has been called the most important Canadian playwright of the postwar period. These two plays from the 1940s prove that great writing and important themes never go out of style.
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(Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from t...)
Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him. His apparently innocent involvement in such innocuous events as the throwing of a snowball or the teaching of card tricks to a small boy in the end prove neither innocent nor innocuous. Fifth Business stands alone as a remarkable story told by a rational man who discovers that the marvelous is only another aspect of the real. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0141186151/?tag=2022091-20
(First published in the U.S. last year, this updated colle...)
First published in the U.S. last year, this updated collection contains the best of Robertson Davies' newspaper and magazine articles written over the past 50 years. "Each piece is entertaining and enlightening. . . ".--Publishers Weekly.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140126597/?tag=2022091-20
(Following the mysterious death of Father Hobbs at the hig...)
Following the mysterious death of Father Hobbs at the high altar on Good Friday, holistic doctor Jonathan Hullah takes a critical look at his past and at the individuals who shaped his life, and reevaluates his personal philosophies. Reprint. NYT.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140248307/?tag=2022091-20
(1983 University of Toronto Press trade paperback, Roberts...)
1983 University of Toronto Press trade paperback, Robertson Davies (Fifth Business). If Hamlet was right, and the theatre does hold the mirror up to nature, what kind of nature did a play such as The Vampyre reflect in its glass? And what relation does it bear to the generally accepted master works of the nineteenth-century stage, the plays of Ibsen and Shaw, for example? In this book Robertson Davies explores in loving detail the world of nineteenth-century melodrama - the plays, the actors, and the theatres themselves - to find the answers to these and other questions. - Google Book
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802065368/?tag=2022091-20
(The University of St John and the Holy Ghost (known affec...)
The University of St John and the Holy Ghost (known affectionately as Spook) has a problem - and an opportunity. Strange, eccentric art patron and collector Francis Cornish has died and faculty members have been made executors of his complicated will. But in the realization of their duties, they find themselves drawn into Cornish's bizarre, secretive and mystical world. In this spellbinding trilogy a host of memorable characters - defrocked, mischief-making monks, half-mad professors, gypsies and musical geniuses - become entangled in a story that involves theft, perjury, scholarship, murder, love, and the squandering of plenty of cash.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0241952611/?tag=2022091-20
(Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a modern cla...)
Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a modern classic," Robertson Davies’s acclaimed Deptford Trilogy is a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived series of novels, around which a mysterious death is woven. The Manticore—the second book in the series after Fifth Business—follows David Staunton, a man pleased with his success but haunted by his relationship with his larger-than-life father. As he seeks help through therapy, he encounters a wonderful cast of characters who help connect him to his past and the death of his father. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014303913X/?tag=2022091-20
(Hailed as a literary masterpiece, Robertson Davies' The C...)
Hailed as a literary masterpiece, Robertson Davies' The Cornish Trilogy comes to a brilliant conclusion in the bestselling Lyre of Orpheus. There is an important decision to be made. The Cornish Foundation is thriving under the directorship of Arthur Cornish when Arthur and his beguiling wife, Maria Theotoky, decide to undertake a project worthy of Francis Cornish -- connoisseur, collector, and notable eccentric -- whose vast fortune endows the Foundation. The grumpy, grimy, extraordinarily talented music student Hulda Schnakenburg is commissioned to complete E. T .A. Hoffmann’s unfinished opera Arthur of Britain, or The Magnanimous Cuckold; and the scholarly priest Simon Darcourt finds himself charged with writing the libretto. Complications both practical and emotional arise: the gypsy in Maria’s blood rises with a vengeance; Darcourt stoops to petty crime; and various others indulge in perjury, blackmail, and other unsavory pursuits. Hoffmann’s dictum, "the lyre of Orpheus opens the door of the underworld," seems to be all too true -- especially when the long-hidden secrets of Francis Cornish himself are finally revealed. Baroque and deliciously funny, this third book in The Cornish Trilogy shows Robertson Davies at his very considerable best. "Robertson Davies is the sort of novelist readers can hardly wait to tell their friends about." -- The Washington Post Book World
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140114335/?tag=2022091-20
writer and professor of English
Robertson was born on August 28, 1913 in Thamesville, Ontario. The son of William Rupert Davies and Florence Sheppard Davies (nee Mackay).
Robertson Davies was a student at Upper Canada College, student at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
Robertson Davies was a teacher and actor at Old Vic Theatre school and Repertory Company, London, 1938-1940; literature editor, Saturday Night, Toronto, Ontario, 1940-1942; editor public, Examiner, Peterborough, Ontario, 1942-1968. Robertson Davies was a Professor of English at Toronto, 1960-1981; master, Massey College, 1962-1981. Past Board of Governors Stratford Ontario Shakespeare Festival.
(Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from t...)
(A Mixture of Frailties, the third volume of Robertson Dav...)
(Following the mysterious death of Father Hobbs at the hig...)
(Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a modern cla...)
(Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a modern cla...)
(Gypsies, defrocked monks, mad professors, and wealthy ecc...)
(A goodhearted priest and scholar, a professor with a pass...)
(, defrocked monks, mad professors, and wealthy eccentrics...)
(The enthusiasm of Robertson Davies for the spirit of Mr P...)
("Canada's leading man of letters and literary virtuoso" (...)
("Stories, lectures, jeux d'esprit, and advice on writing ...)
(With his familiar wit and elegant malice, Samuel Marchban...)
(This collection of "spooky" stories was written for and r...)
(Now in paperback, the book that marked the first appearan...)
(Hailed as a literary masterpiece, Robertson Davies' The C...)
(At two minutes to six on December 27th 1908 the lives of ...)
(Outlining the delights of reading, the author tells of wh...)
( Contains two plays by acclaimed Canadian author and pla...)
("A Mixture of Frailties is so much more than the story of...)
(The Salterton Trilogy: Tempest-Tost Leaven of Malice a Mi...)
(The University of St John and the Holy Ghost (known affec...)
(A nice example of Davies' first play, named best Canadian...)
(The North Country Angler, or the Art of Angling: As Pract...)
(In the small university town of Salterton, Ontario, dream...)
(The manticore is a monster with the head of a man, the bo...)
(Woven around the pursuits of the energetic spirits and er...)
( Robertson Davies has been called the most important Can...)
(The following announcement appeared in the Salterton Even...)
(Winner of the Lealock Award for Humor “His writing is...)
(1983 University of Toronto Press trade paperback, Roberts...)
(People who do not know Salterton call it dreamy and old w...)
(People who do not know Salterton call it dreamy and old w...)
(Both books are unread clean, unmarked pages, tight bindin...)
(Decorations and dust jacket art by Clair Stewart. His six...)
(A volume in this series of books)
(Book by Davies, Robertson.)
(Book by Davies, Robertson)
(First published in the U.S. last year, this updated colle...)
(Book by Davies, Robertson)
(Novel of a doctor's life)
(Hunting Stuart.- King Phoenix.- General confession.)
(1190pages. poche. Broché sous coffret.)
Music, theatre.
Robertson Davies was married to Brenda Mathews. He had three children.