( A delight, a novel that travels 70 years of history on ...)
A delight, a novel that travels 70 years of history on its own swift feet, a book of love and wisdom, loss and ironyThe Boston Sunday Globe
When Father Hobbes mysteriously dies at the high alter on Good Friday, Dr. Jonathan Hullah whose holistic work has earned him the label Cunning Man (for the wizard of folk tradition) wants to know why. The physician-cum-diagnosticians search for answers compels him to look back over his own long life. He conjures vivid memories of the dazzling, intellectual high jinks and compassionate philosophies of himself and his circle, including flamboyant, mystical curate Charlie Iredale; cynical, quixotic professor Brocky Gilmartin; outrageous banker Darcy Dwyer; and jocular, muscular artist Pansy Todhunter. In compelling and hilarious scenes from the divine comedy of life, The Cunning Man reveals profound truth about being human.
The crowning achievement of one of the most learned, amusing accomplished novelists of our time and of our century. The New York Times Book Review
William Robertson Davies was a Canadian journalist, playwright, and novelist.
Background
William Robertson Davies was born on August 28, 1913 in the village of Thamesville, Ontario, Canada. He came from a very old and prominent family. The family of his mother, Florence Sheppard McKay Davies, had moved to Canada from England in 1785. His father, William Rupert Davies, hailed originally from Wales, but made his name as a Canadian publisher and politician. Davies also had two older brothers.
Davies developed an interest in drama early in life. At the age of three, he made his stage debut in the opera Queen Esther. He maintained a diary throughout his school years in which he wrote out his reactions to the stage performances he saw. When Davies was five years old, his family moved to Renfrew, Ontario, a rural village in the Ottawa Valley.
Education
He attended country schools in the Ottawa Valley. From 1928 to 1932 he attended Upper Canada College in Toronto. His favorite activities during this period included music, theater, and editing the school newspaper.
Davies moved on to Queen's University in Kingston. He spent three years there, marked by his participation in the Drama Guild. He completed his higher education in 1938 at Balliol College, Oxford, where he earned a literature degree. His thesis, entitled Shakespeare's Boy Actors, attracted the attention of Sir Tyrone Guthrie, a legendary drama teacher.
Career
Guthrie hired Davies to work him at London's famous Old Vic theater. Davies spent a year there working at a variety of jobs, from bit player to stage manager. He gained valuable stage experience on productions of Shakespeare, working alongside world-renowned actors including Ralph Richardson and Vivien Leigh. Davies took a job as literary editor of the Toronto magazine Saturday Night.
After two years with Saturday Night, Davies took a position with the Peterborough Examiner. He would remain with that paper for the next 20 years. In the early days there he wrote a whimsical column under the guise of "Samuel Marchbanks. " These witty observations were later collected into the books The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks (1947), The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks (1949), and Marchbanks' Almanack (1967). Another of his regular columns, "A Writer's Diary, " consisting of observations on the literary scene, helped establish Davies as a major new voice in criticism.
The 1940s were a fertile period for Davies. Besides his weekly columns, he was also writing and directing plays at the Peterborough Little Theatre.
His one-acts works were: The Voice of the People (1948), At the Gates of the Righteous (1948), and Hope Deferred (1948). The year 1948 saw the production of Davies' first full-length play. Fortune, My Foe. Another three-act, At My Heart's Core, dealt with similar themes.
Frustrated by his inability to get his plays produced outside of Canada, Davies turned to novel writing in the 1950. His first novel, Tempest-Tost, was published in 1951. His another book - A Mixture of Frailties (1958). The books received many positive critical notices and established Davies' reputation as a novelist.
In 1960, Davies adapted his novel Leaven of Malice for the New York stage. Directed by Guthrie using experimental techniques, the play failed with critics and folded after six performance. Disappointment over this experience all but drove Davies away from theater, though he did continue to write and lecture on the subject.
As his creative reputation grew, Davies found himself in demand for academic appointments. He served as a visiting professor at Trinity College from 1961 to 1962 and was named to the Master's Lodge at Massey College, a graduate wing of the University of Toronto, in 1963. He quit his newspaper post at the Examiner in 1962 to concentrate on these teaching endeavors.
In 1970, Davies published a new novel, Fifth Business, the first installment of his "Deptford Trilogy. " Its rich plot helped make it a bestseller in America, cementing Davies stature as an international author of the first rank.
In the 1980, Davies completed another trilogy of novels, revolving around the biography of Francis Cornish. The so-called "Cornish Trilogy" was another dense, erudite chronicle of upper class Canadian life. The second installment, What's Bred in the Bone (1985) earned him awards. The other books in this series are The Rebel Angels (1982) and The Lyre of Orpheus (1988).
Davies also wrote novels outside the trilogy format. These included High Spirits (1983) and Murther & Walking Spirits (1991). The Cunning Man (1994), a novel in the form of a memoir by an aging physician, was called "as substantial and entertaining as any he has written" by Isabel Colegate in the New York Times Book Review.
Davies retired from teaching in 1981, but maintained his membership in various literary and academic societies as he worked on his various novels. He died of a stroke on December 2, 1995. His last book, a collection of non-fiction essays entitled The Merry Heart: Reflections on Reading, Writing, and the World of Books, was published posthumously in 1997.
Quotations:
Often asked if he used a computer, Davies said in 1987: "I don't want a word-processor. I process my own words. Helpful people assure me that a word-processor would save me a great deal of time. But I don't want to save time. I want to write the best book I can, and I have whatever time it takes to make that attempt. "
Personality
With his bushy white beard and flowing mane of hair, Davies looked the part of a grizzled, ancient storyteller-which to his millions of devoted readers is exactly what he was.
Davies was a fine public speaker - deft, often humorous, and unafraid to be unfashionable.
Quotes from others about the person
In its obituary, The Times wrote: "Davies encompassed all the great elements of life. .. His novels combined deep seriousness and psychological inquiry with fantasy and exuberant mirth. "
Connections
Davies was married to Brenda Ethel Davies (1917–2012) in 1940 and survived by four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren from his three daughters Miranda Davies, Rosamond Bailey and author Jennifer Surridge.