Canadian writer, playwright, newspaperman, editor, college professor and one of Canada’s foremost men of letters, awarded the Governor General’s medal in 1972. He wrote from the time he was 11, becoming something of a legend in his own time with his flowing beard, great physical stature and intellectual acumen. His books have been translated into 17 languages, more than 30 published works including the celebrated “Deptford Trilogy.” As recently as 1993, he was considered for a Nobel Prize in Literature.
Davies achieved his fame as a novelist late in his life. His books “Fifth Business,” “The Manticore,” and “World of Wonders,” published between 1970 and 1975, won him a steady, loyal audience and critical acclaim from book reviewers. His works are compared to the great novelists of the nineteenth century. He supplied his books with intricate details, many characters and intriguing plots. Unlike modern contemporary authors, Davies kept an underlying moral and philosophical view to his stories. His works hint at the religious belief of an underlying sense to life which his readers have embraced in over 12 languages.
Davies grew up in Renfrew, Ontario, the son of Rupert Davies, the Welsh editor of the local town paper. He was the third son of his Calvinist parents. His mother enjoyed performing in amateur theatricals. At ten, Davies began to entertain his family and friends with his magic tricks. He was an avid reader, devouring the 12 volume “Everyman’s Encyclopedia” as a young boy. At 14, he was sent to boarding school, an experience of which he gratefully survived. He later wrote, “If you can survive boarding school, nothing you meet later in life will surprise you because you’ll see every kind of politics, monkey business, evil and sexual sin.”
He attended Queen’s University in Ontario and went on to Balliol at Oxford University. He was a superior student in the studies of Shakespearean drama, which won him high honors. In college, his interests were in music, hagiography and criminology. After graduation he sought a career in the West End theater under British director Tyrone Guthrie. When the West End theaters closed in September 1939 with the appearance of war, Davies returned back home to Canada.
In 1940, Davies worked as a literary editor of a journal on politics and the arts. With his father’s persuasion, he became the editor and then publisher of the family-owned “Peterborough Examiner” in Ontario. He worked for the paper for 20 years. In the meantime, he wrote and produced 12 plays in the ’50s and ’60s. In 1961, he went to work teaching at Massey College at the newly created University of Toronto. With the publication of his book, “Fifth Business” in 1970, Davies became a much-loved novelist with a large international audience. His book “What’s Bred in the Bone” was released in 1986.
Davies met his wife Australian-born Brenda Mathews when she was the stage manager and he played in the West End production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” 1939. They married the following year in London and she accompanied her new husband to his home in Canada. The couple raised three daughters, the eldest of whom is a practicing children’s analyst in London. Davies was influenced by the writings of psychologist Carl Jung and he became the executive of the Analytical Psychology Society of Ontario. Davies and his wife lived in a Toronto condominium with a collection of religious icons. He escaped to a country house outside Toronto four days a week. Davies made an annual journey to London to enjoy the West End theater season.
Davies died of a stroke 12/02/1995 in Orangeville, Ontario, after having suffered a massive brain hemorrhage on 11/29/1995.
Link to Wikipedia biography