Robertson DaviesThis is a featured page

Robertson DaviesRobertson Davies died in 1995. I remember being disappointed at the time that I'd never have an opportunity to read another new novel by him.

Davies was a prolific writer that wrote in a number of different genres:

Essays - The Papers of Samuel Marchbanks

Plays - there are quite a few listed on Wikipedia. I can't say that I've read any of them.

Short Stories - High Spirits

But what he's best known for are novels in general and trilogies in particular.

The Deptford Trilogy - Fifth Business, The Manticore, World of Wonders

The Cornish Trilogy - The Rebel Angels, What's Bred in the Bone, The Lyre of Orpheus

Murther and Walking Spirits and The Cunning Man - may or may not have been the unfinished parts of another trilogy.

He also wrote The Salterton Trilogy. This was his earliest trilogy and I found it disappointing after reading his later works.

What I like best about Davies is his sense of humor, his tackling very deep themes in a thoughtful yet enjoyable way. He's left me with a number of questions that continue to influence the way I perceive the world and a quote about books that is uncannily suited to me:

"She herself was a victim of that lust for books which rages in the breast like a demon, and which cannot be stilled save by the frequent and plentiful acquisition of books. This passion is more common, and more powerful, than most people suppose. Book lovers are thought by unbookish people to be gentle and unworldly, and perhaps a few of them are so. But there are others who will lie and scheme and steal to get books as wildly and unconscionably as the dope-taker in pursuit of his drug. They may not want the books to read immediately, or at all; they want them to possess, to range on their shelves, to have at command."
Robertson Davies (1913-1995)


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