In my last year of high school. we read Fifth Business by Robertson Davies in the English class I took (there were two different, rather distinct Grade 13 English courses in my high school). I was so taken with it that I went on to read the rest of the Deptford Trilogy as an independent study and the teacher loaned me his copy of Rebel Angels (which was just out) as well. I continued to read Davies up until his passing ended his output.

I still have one book by Davies in paper, a collection of all his Samuel Marchbanks humour pieces. When I need a pick me up, I read a few of the bits in it and at least one will usually strike my funny bone. The humour is a bit quaint and dated in places (the incessant jokes about Marchbanks' cantankerous coal furnace are too old even for me given that oil and natural gas have been the home hearing fuels of choice in my lifetime), but I'm often amazed by how some of the political stuff still works given that these were largely written in the 1940s.

As I read it today, I realized that I had never checked to see if Davies' novels were out for Kindle or Kobo (ie. ebooks). It appears that they are not. They are still in print in paper so it's not like he's dropped off the face of the literary Earth or something. Penguin is the publisher so I wonder if they are one of the ebook holdouts or if it is the Davies' estate that is the problem. Should look into it because I'd love to have at least the Deptford and Cornish trilogies in my e-library.

Is Davies still read today or has he become one of writers who is much talked about (there are plenty of critical and biographical works about him) but rarely actually read anymore?

Mendalla