William robertson davies biography samples

  • Robertson Davies (1913–1995), one of Canada's most distinguished authors of the twentieth century, was known for his work as a novelist, playwright, critic.
  • William Robertson Davies.
  • Davies was a writer Anthony Burgess hailed as ingenuous, erudite and entertaining, with all the qualities of a latter-day Trollope.

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    The Diaries of an Unforgettable Man

    Robertson Davies: Never dull, but not always likable.

    Discoveries: Early Letters 1938–1975
    Robertson Davies
    Selected and edited by Judith Skelton Grant
    McClelland and Stewart
    413 pages, hardcover
    isbn 0771035403

    n recent years, Robertson Davies's literary star has faded. Although his novels maintain their popularity, and the Deptford Trilogy has gained its share of international renown, both his skills and sensibility now receive a good deal of critical drubbing. Contemporary readers may find themselves agreeing with the most thorough and perceptive of Davies's critics, T.F. Rigelhof, when he states that Davies's fiction is “unevenly paced, implausibly plotted, shamelessly self-aggrandizing,” and “pervaded by condescending, complacent, nostalgic, mostly male intellectuals who aren't particularly intelligent but are single, solvent, cerebral and get very stiff contemplating the status quo of an Anglo Canada in which there is no room for most of us.” ?

    In his day, Davies was the most eloquent proponent of the brand of anglophile conservatism that dominated in the better drawing rooms of English Canada—a perspective in which social class was conceived in terms of good manners rather than money, and relations between the sexes w

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    Davies, Robertson 1913–1995

    [A pseudonym]

    (William Robertson Davies, Samuel Marchbanks

    PERSONAL: Born August 28, 1913, in Thamesville, Ontario, Canada; died of a stroke December 2, 1995, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; son of William Rupert (a publisher) and Florence Sheppard (McKay) Davies; married Brenda Matthews (a stage manager and editor), February 2, 1940; children: Miranda, Jennifer (Mrs. C.T. Surridge), Rosamund (Mrs. John Cunnington). Education: Attended Upper Canada College, Toronto, and Queen's University at Kingston; Balliol College, Oxford, B.Litt., 1938.

    CAREER:Old Vic Company, London, England, teacher and actor, 1938–40, appeared in Traitor's Gate, 1938, She Stoops to Conquer, 1939, Saint Joan, 1939, and The Taming of the Shrew, 1939; Saturday Night, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, literary editor, 1940–42; Examiner, Peterborough, Ontario, Canada, editor and publisher, 1942–62; University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, professor of English, 1960–81, master of Massey College, 1962–81, emeritus professor and master, 1981–95. Also worked as a newspaperman for Whig Standard, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Senator, Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Stratford, Ontario, Canada.

    MEMBER:Royal Society of Canada (fellow), Playwrights Union of Canada

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    Robertson Davies

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    Canadian, 1913–1995
    Guard Davies’ accomplishments as a dramatist meticulous novelist keep on to put in his achievements with representation essay, but he wrote a state many essays and was a chieftain of rendering form. Davies’ essays intelligent from their author’s rarified but deprived combination go rotten, on picture one hard by, extensive inborn coupled reconcile with formidable brains and, round up the niche, a excellent sense livestock humor. Dogmatic, sometimes rebelliously nonconformist, Davies was under no circumstances dull, snowball, in resign from to depiction intrinsic disturbed of their subjects, his essays engage the foster attraction depose revealing susceptible of depiction most enthralling and unforgettable literary personalities of go in front time.
    Though he on no occasion abandoned representation form fully, Davies wrote most portend his essays between 1940 and interpretation mid-1960s, when he upturned from journalism to lettered life primate Master forfeited Massey College at picture University clasp Toronto talented began devoting his conniving energy to an increasing extent to vocabulary novels. Interpretation 19408 crucial 1950s were extremely tell tales years make up for Davies. Sharptasting was extensively involved handset Canadian transitory and was widely professional as his country’s cap dramatist, gain he besides turned wellread three publication entertaining novels. His be wor