New Releases by Robertson Davies

A collection of speeches on literature, academia, and more by the " extremely entertaining novelist and public speaker" ( The Washington Post). These public addresses by the acclaimed Canadian man of letters and New York Times-bestselling author Robertson Davies provides portraits of literary personalities, advice on writers and writing, and comments on academia and the modern world. Whether giving advice to schoolgirls, discussing the Age of Aquarius as seen by alchemists, exploring Jungian psychology in the theater and insanity in literature, or telling us how to design a haunted house, Davies brings to all his subjects the same intensity and marvelous craftsmanship that are the hallmarks of his fictional creations.

"With a sure comic touch, Davies assembles his cast of characters and lets them make fools of themselves . . . in the best Shakespearean tradition."-The Emerald City Book Review Weaving a tapestry of wonderfully developed characters, smoldering rivalries, and witty satire, Robertson Davies introduces the first book in the Salterton Trilogy. An amateur production of The Tempest provides a colorful backdrop for a hilarious look at unrequited love. Mathematics teacher Hector Mackilwraith, stirred and troubled by Shakespeare's play, falls in love with the beautiful heiress Griselda Webster. When Griselda shows she has plans of her own, Hector despairs on the play's opening night. "High comedy with a spice of satire to give it savor."-Montreal Gazette "An exercise in puckish persiflage."-Toronto Star "Hilarious, satirical, witty and clever."-Edmonton Journal "By turns humorous and sympathetic, Davies shows us that he knows his stuff, even in this, his first book."-AllReaders.com "It would not be a bad thing for more writers to read and be inspired by Davies's example of intelligent, emotionally resonant fiction, or for more readers to discover its pleasures."-The Emerald City Book Review

A collection of essays “filled with pleasantly rambling opinions about everything from self-help books to erotica” from the celebrated Canadian author (The Chronicle Journal). An urbane, robust, and wonderfully opinionated voice from Canada, sometimes called “America’s attic,” speaks here of the delights of reading, and of what mass education has done to readers today, to taste, to books, to culture. With his usual wit and breadth of vision, Robertson Davies ranges through the world of letters—books renowned and obscure, old and recent; English, Irish, Canadian, and American writers both forgotten and fondly remembered. “Sweet reason in the raiment of well-woven prose? Most assuredly. Good humor agraze over broad literary demesnes? No doubt of it. Forgotten popular favorites rescued and rehabilitated? Certainly. A parade of agreeable prejudices? He would not be a true Canadian if he did not have them. Lightheartedness where needed? Yes. Seriousness where it counts? Yes. Wit, satirical touches, firm indignations, sound sense, good taste, judiciousness, cosmopolitan breadth of view, urbanity, sanity, unexpected eccentricities, educated humanism? By all means. It is indeed by all these means and more that this book of essays and observations bestows its multiple benefactions, and anyone picking it up is bound north to pleasure and profit.”—The New York Times

The acclaimed playwright, novelist, and author of Fifth Business explores the performing arts in this witty and insightful essay collection. Though best known for his award-winning fiction, Robertson Davies enjoyed a long and varied career as an actor, playwright, journalist and critic. Happy Alchemy collects an equally diverse range of Davies' writings—including speeches, articles, prologues to plays, a ghost story set to music, and even a scenario for a film. In this eclectic volume, Davies shares his many musings on music, theatre, opera, and more. These pieces, many of them published here for the first time, touch on topics from Greek tragedy to Scottish Folklore and from Lewis Carroll to Carl Jung.

Cuando el padre Hobbes muere misteriosamente en Toronto durante la celebración del Viernes Santo, el doctor Jonathan Hullah, cuyos heterodoxos métodos clínicos le han valido el apodo de el Hombre Astuto, decide averiguar el porqué. Azuzado por una joven periodista que investiga la figura del padre Hobbes, Hullah, el protagonista de esta memorable historia, vuelve la vista atrás en busca de respuestas y repasa una vida plagada de acontecimientos y personajes inolvidables

Connor Gilmartin, director de la sección de espectáculos del Advocate, un periódico de Toronto, sorprende a su mujer en la cama con otro hombre. El amante, que casualmente es un crítico del mismo diario, termina asesinando al atónito marido. Sin embargo, este hecho no supondrá la completa desaparición de Connor, ya que su fantasma perseguirá al homicida hasta un importante festival de cine. Y mientras el crítico se esfuerza en analizar los largometrajes que proyectan, espectro y lectores nos convertimos en espectadores privilegiados de unas peculiares películas sobre la historia de la familia Gilmartin. En la oscuridad de la sala, sentado junto a su asesino, realidad y ficción terminarán por confundirse ... Con su tono más humorístico, Davies nos ofrece el fantástico retrato de un hombre cuya vida se ve repentinamente truncada, pero que renace a otro tipo de existencia mucho más lúcida y libre. En la cumbre de su talento, el maestro canadiense nos regaló una de sus mejores obras, una nueva muestra de su talento que aúna reflexión y entretenimiento, sabiduría y emoción. Asesinato y ánimas en pena nos devuelve a Robertson Davies en estado puro.

Available as an eBook for the first time, The Rebel Angels is the first book in the celebrated Cornish Trilogy. Gypsies, defrocked monks, mad professors, and wealthy eccentrics—a remarkable cast peoples Robertson Davies’ brilliant spectacle of theft, perjury, murder, scholarship, and love at a modern university. Only Davies, author of Fifth Business, could have woven together their destinies with such wit, humour, and wisdom.

Murther & Walking Spirits is available as an eBook for the first time. “I was never so amazed in my life as when the Sniffer drew his concealed weapon from its case and struck me to the ground, stone dead.” So begins the unusual story of Connor “Gil” Gilmartin when he catches his wife in flagrante with the Sniffer, his former colleague and now his murderer. Though he is struck dead in the very first line of this novel, death is only the first indignity Gil is about to suffer. For he lingers on as a ghost, and from this bleak vantage–made even less endurable by the fact that he must spend the afterlife sitting beside his killer at a film festival–he is forced to view the exploits and failures of his ancestors, from the forerunners who sailed up the Hudson to Canada during the American Revolution right up to his university-professor parents.

Robertson Davies (1913-1995) had a remarkable literary career that extended through the entire second half of the 20th century. Chronicling his time as editor of the Peterborough Examiner, his role as the founding master of Massey College and most of all his life as a writer - from the failure of a play in New York to the beginnings of an idea for a novel that would become Fifth Business (1970) - A Celtic Temperament is entertaining and illuminating and a major addition to Davies' body of work.

La apertura del testamento de Louisa Bridgetower deja atónita a la ciudad de Salterton: su hijo Solly no herederá un centavo hasta que haya tenido un hijo y buena parte de su fortuna se deberá destinar a la educación de una joven artista. Los albaceas seleccionarán a Monica Gall, la solista de un peculiar conjunto de gospel local a la que enviarán a estudiar a Inglaterra. El arte, el genio, la formación artística, la música, el amor, las relaciones paternofiliales, las peculiaridades canadienses... son temas recurrentes en la obra de Davies que aquí son tratados magistralmente a través de la figura de Monica Gall, la joven cantante de Salterton a la que la herencia de la señora Bridgetower cambiará hasta extremos que ella jamás hubiera imaginado. Tercera entrega del ciclo de novelas independientes que se terminará conociendo como Trilogía de Salterton, la pluma de Davies logra en esta novela un vivo retrato del alma humana, que acaso no sea en verdad otra cosa que una mezcla de flaquezas. «Davies es uno de esos narradores –de ahí que lo suyo suene tan vital y despierto—que producen la sensación de estar a nuestro lado, yendo apenas dos o tres líneas por delante, soltando risitas de placer anticipando lo que nos espera.» Rodrigo Fresán (ABC) «Davies es un mago cuya puesta en escena no tiene tramoya ni apela a la superstición; sus herramientas son la imaginación y la felicidad, ambas afinadas por lo que él mismo calificaba de “compromiso vitalicio con la compasión”. (...) En las novelas de Robertson Davies, como en los mitos que tanto lo fascinaban, cabe el mundo.»Nadal Suau «Ingenioso, erudito, entretenido... Davies despliega todas las cualidades de un Trollope tardío y nos muestra cómo es el Canadá moderno..»Anthony Burgess (The Observer)

The Foundation, looking for a worthy undertaking upon which to expend its considerable monies, decides to fund the doctoral work of Hulda Schnakenburg, an extraordinarily talented music student. Her task is to complete the score of an unfinished opera.

The third book in Robertson Davies's acclaimed The Deptford Trilogy, with a new foreword by Kelly Link Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a modern classic," Robertson Davies’s acclaimed Deptford Trilogy is a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived series of novels, around which a mysterious death is woven. World of Wonders—the third book in the series after The Manticore—follows the story of Magnus Eisengrim—the most illustrious magician of his age—who is spirited away from his home by a member of a traveling sideshow, the Wanless World of Wonders. After honing his skills and becoming better known, Magnus unfurls his life’s courageous and adventurous tale in this third and final volume of a spectacular, soaring work. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The second book in Robertson Davies's acclaimed The Deptford Trilogy, with a new foreword by Kelly Link Hailed by the Washington Post Book World as "a modern classic," Robertson Davies’s acclaimed Deptford Trilogy is a glittering, fantastical, cunningly contrived series of novels, around which a mysterious death is woven. The Manticore—the second book in the series after Fifth Business—follows David Staunton, a man pleased with his success but haunted by his relationship with his larger-than-life father. As he seeks help through therapy, he encounters a wonderful cast of characters who help connect him to his past and the death of his father. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The announcement of Miss Pearl Vambrace's engagement to Mr Solomon Bridgetower, with a wedding date set for November 31, has been placed in the Salterton Evening Bellman, causing its editor and the families of the non-betrothed great distress. Presented in an audio format, this title tells this humorous story.

The first book in Robertson Davies's acclaimed The Deptford Trilogy, with a new foreword by Kelly Link Ramsay is a man twice born, a man who has returned from the hell of the battle-grave at Passchendaele in World War I decorated with the Victoria Cross and destined to be caught in a no man's land where memory, history, and myth collide. As Ramsay tells his story, it begins to seem that from boyhood, he has exerted a perhaps mystical, perhaps pernicious, influence on those around him. His apparently innocent involvement in such innocuous events as the throwing of a snowball or the teaching of card tricks to a small boy in the end prove neither innocent nor innocuous. Fifth Business stands alone as a remarkable story told by a rational man who discovers that the marvelous is only another aspect of the real. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

One of North America's most beloved and acclaimed novelists presents a selection of his letters that for the first time gathers previously unpublished letters that he wrote at the height of his career, giving a rare glimpse in the life of the private man.

Dr. Jonathan Hullah is a "cunning man," one who will help almost all infirmities of mind and body, and enjoys a reputation as a brilliant, if unorthodox, diagnostician. Earlier in his career, Hullah was present at the death of Father Hobbes, who died while celebrating Communion. Prompted by a journalist's questions about this mysterious death, Hullah begins to reflect on his past and the other mysteries he has encountered, medical and spiritual.

This humorous novel explores the reactions of a small town to a false engagement notice in the local paper.

Woven around the pursuits of the energetic spirits and erudite scholars of the University of St. John and the Holy Ghost, this dazzling trilogy of novels lures the reader into a world of mysticism, historical allusion, and gothic fantasy that could only be the invention of Canada's grand man of letters.

Conversations with Robertson Davies is a long overdue anthology of interviews with Canada's most respected literary figure. Journalist, essayist, reviewer, playwright, and novelist, Robertson Davies has not only been a leading figure in Canadian literature since World War II, but, since the publication of Fifth Business in 1970, he has become known throughout the world. Conversations with Robertson Davies will be of interest both to the student of Canadian literature and culture and to the scholar examining Davies's plays and novels as well as to the general reader who would like to know more about the awesome man behind the Salterton and Deptford trilogies, What's Bred in the Bone, and The Lyre of Orpheus. A majority of this anthology of twenty-eight interviews has never before appeared in print. Along with these previously unpublished interviews, the reader finds a selection of the best print interviews: Tom Harpur of the Toronto Star proves Davies's spiritual beliefs, Ann Saddlemyer looks into his dreams, and author Terence M. Green questions Davies on the supernatural.