Robertson Davies

Robertson Davies married Brenda Mathews, who was a stage manager. His wife was of Australian descent.

He was close friends with John Kenneth Galbraith and was also a close friend of the novelist, John Irving.

He passed away on December 2, 1995, in Orangeville, Ontario. His funeral was covered live and was attended by dignitaries such as Margaret Atwood and Timothy Findlay.

William Robertson Davies was born on August 28, 1913, to William Rupert Davies and Florence Sheppard McKay, in Thamesville, Ontario.

He studied at Upper Canada College from 1926 to 1932 and during this time, he attended the facilities at the Church of St. Mary Magdalene.

After he graduated from college, he studied at Queen’s University, where he contributed to the university paper, ‘The Queen’s Journal’. He soon left Canada and went to study at Balliol College, Oxford from where he received his B. Litt degree in 1938.

In 1939, he published his thesis, ‘Shakespeare’s Boy Actors’, and embarked on an acting career outside London. The following year, he acted in small roles and worked at the Old Vic Repertory Company.

He returned to Canada in 1940 where he got the job of literary editor for ‘Saturday Night’. In two years, he became the editor of the ‘Peterborough Examiner’.

In 1942, he published the thesis, ‘Shakespeare for Young Players: A Junior Course’, followed by his first fictional essay five years later titled, ‘The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks’.

From 1948 to 1950, he diverged from just writing theses and wrote a number of plays including, ‘Overlaid’, ‘Eros at Breakfast’, ‘Hope Deferred’, ‘King Phoenix’, ‘Fortune my Foe’, ‘The Voice of the People’ and ‘At My Heart’s Core’. During this time, he also wrote the fictional essay, ‘The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks’.

He published his first novel in 1951, which was the first installment of ‘The Salterton Trilogy’ titled, ‘Tempest-Tost’. During this time, he still served as an editor with the ‘Examiner’. Four years later, he published the second installment of the series titled, ‘Leaven of Malice’.

In the 1950s, he played a major role in initiating the Stratford Shakespearean Festival of Canada, where he served on the board of governors.

From 1970 to 1975, he published ‘The Deptford Trilogy’, which includes the books, ‘Fifth Business’, ‘The Manticore’ and ‘World of Wonders’. This is largely regarded as one of his major works due to its narrative complexity and plot build-up. ‘Fifth Business’, the first in the series, is considered the best from the three novels in the series, which is currently rated 40th on the Modern Library’s list of ‘100 best novels of the 20th century’.