Davies, Robertson (William Robertson Davies) (dā`vĭs), 1913–95, Canadian writer and editor. After receiving a B.Litt. from Oxford (1938), he joined the Old Vic Theatre Company before returning to Canada (1940) as an editor. In 1963 he became the first master of Massey College, a graduate college of the Univ. of Toronto; he retired in 1981. During his long literary career he produced more than 30 works of fiction as well as plays, essays, and criticism. Among the most important themes explored in his densely plotted novels are the moral dimensions of life, the isolation of the human spirit, and humanity's growth from innocence to experience.

Davies's three novel trilogies deal with life in fictional Ontario villages. The Salterton Trilogy—Tempest-Tost (1951), Leaven of Malice (1954), and A Mixture of Frailties (1958)—is a satiric romance that explores Canadian life and culture. The Deptford Trilogy—Fifth Business (1970), The Manticore (1972), and World of Wonders (1975)—is a richly plotted study of three individuals' journeys to self-discovery that mingles humor, mystery, magic, grotesqueries, and the Jungian theory of archetypes. Later novels include his third trilogy, the Cornish—The Rebel Angels (1981), Bred in the Bone (1985), and The Lyre of Orpheus (1989), as well as The Cunning Man (1995).

Bibliography

See For Your Eye Alone: Letters, 1976–1996 (2001), ed. by J. S. Grant; biography by J. S. Grant (1978, 1994); studies by E. Buitenhuis (1972), P. A. Morley (1977), J. Mills (1984), S. Stone-Blackburn (1985), and M. Peterman (1986).

Davies, (William) Robertson

(born Aug. 28, 1913, Thamesville, Ont., Can.—died Dec. 2, 1995, Orangeville, Ont.) Canadian novelist and playwright. Educated at the University of Oxford, Davies for many years edited the Peterborough (Ont.) Examiner and taught at the University of Toronto. He is best known for three trilogies: the Deptford trilogy consists of Fifth Business (1970), The Manticore (1972), and World of Wonders (1975), novels examining the intersecting lives of three men from a small Canadian town; the Salterton trilogy, three comedies of manners set in a provincial university town; and the so-called Cornish trilogy—The Rebel Angels (1981), What's Bred in the Bone (1985), and The Lyre of Orpheus (1988). Davies's novels are notable for satirizing bourgeois provincialism and exploring the relationship between mysticism and art.