The Merry Heart [antikvár]

Introduction WHEN ROBERTSON DAVIES DIED on December 2, 1995, the sad news circled the globe, inspiring obituaries in a dozen countries. All of the writers - and readers too many to count - mourned the fact that a unique, utterly distinctive voice had been stilled. It is true that the world will never see another novel by Robertson Davies. Our sense of loss is all the greater because even after he had passed his eightieth year, there was no sense of decline in his work. He was writing at the top of his form until his final, short illness. It is notable that The Cunning Man, one of his most accomplished and successful novels, was completed in the spring of 1994, when he was eighty years old. But while he researched and prepared for the novel that would follow it - to make up what might have become known in time as "The Toronto Trilogy" - he went on writing, producing speeches, book reviews, even a libretto. Fortunately, because of his prodigious energy and discipline (he believed that the writer's craft was like a muscle, and needed constant exercising), we are able to celebrate a new book by Robertson Davies.