Robertson Davies, Celebrated Canadian Author And Dramatist

Robertson Davies, one of Canada's most celebrated novelists, a man of letters and the master of eclectic careers in theater, journalism and academia, died Saturday of a stroke in Peterborough, Ontario. He was 82.

Davies' breakthrough as a novelist came with the 1970 publication of "Fifth Business," the first work in the renowned "Deptford Trilogy," which traced the interconnected lives of three men in the fictional town of Deptford, Ontario. His last work of fiction, "The Cunning Man," was published this year.

Many of his 11 novels came packaged as trilogies. What began as stand-alone works of fiction tripled accidentally, Davies said, because "I found almost as soon as I had finished that it wasn't all I wanted to say."

Long before Davies gained acclaim for his fiction, he had made a mark as an actor and playwright for the Old Vic Company in London; then as a columnist, editor and publisher of a small Canadian newspaper; and again as a professor of 19th-century drama, and the founding master of Massey College at the University of Toronto.

The first of his trilogies, in the 1950s, was the Salterton Trilogy, which included "Tempest-Tost," "Leaven of Malice" and "A Mixture of Frailties."

The second and best-known, in the 1970s, was the Deptford Trilogy, which included "Fifth Business," "The Manticore" and "World of Wonders."

The third, in the 1980s, was the Cornish Trilogy, including "The Rebel Angels," "What's Bred in the Bone" and "The Lyre of Orpheus."