I encountered the work of Robertson Davies by chance. Long before ipads or e-readers were around to divert, I had a long, slow, train journey from London to Dundee in prospect and gambled on a thousand-pager (a one-volume trilogy) by a Canadian writer, who died on December 2, 1995 aged 82, that I knew little about.
His book made the journey pass so pleasantly that I went on to read his two other mammoth trilogies and was charmed and entertained by them all (Deptford, Cornish and Salterton are his big three trios). Davies was a writer Anthony Burgess hailed as "ingenuous, erudite and entertaining, with all the qualities of a latter-day Trollope".
Davies was born in born Thamesville, Ontario, more than a hundred years ago – August, 28, 1913 – and although his books are still in print, and he was honoured in his centenary year by being put on a Canadian stamp, I wonder about the extent to which he has faded from view. The Salterton Trilogy, for example, was at number 388,995 in the Amazon bestsellers chart in December 2015, 20 years after his death.
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His book made the journey pass so pleasantly that I went on to read his two other mammoth trilogies and was charmed and entertained by them all (Deptford, Cornish and Salterton are his big three trios). Davies was a writer Anthony Burgess hailed as "ingenuous, erudite and entertaining, with all the qualities of a latter-day Trollope".
Davies was born in born Thamesville, Ontario, more than a hundred years ago – August, 28, 1913 – and although his books are still in print, and he was honoured in his centenary year by being put on a Canadian stamp, I wonder about the extent to which he has faded from view. The Salterton Trilogy, for example, was at number 388,995 in the Amazon bestsellers chart in December 2015, 20 years after his death.
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