This image is the cover for the book Cornish Trilogy Omnibus, Cornish Trilogy

Cornish Trilogy Omnibus, Cornish Trilogy

Available in one volume, all three books of the darkly witty Cornish Trilogy: The Rebel Angels, What’s Bred in the Bone, and The Lyre of Orpheus.

The fate of the Cornish family unfolds in this trio of novels by acclaimed Canadian writer Robertson Davies . . .

The Rebel Angels. Set in motion by the death of eccentric art patron and collector Francis Cornish, a goodhearted priest and scholar, a professor with a passion for the darker side of medieval psychology, a defrocked monk, and a rich young businessman who inherits some troublesome paintings are all helplessly beguiled by the same coed.

What’s Bred in the Bone. This worthy follow-up goes back to Cornish’s humble beginnings in a spellbinding tale of artistic triumph and heroic deceit. It is a tale told in stylish, elegant prose, endowed with lavish portions of Davies’ wit and wisdom.

The Lyre of Orpheus. The Cornish Foundation is thriving under the directorship of Arthur Cornish when Arthur and his beguiling wife decide to undertake a project worthy of Francis Cornish. Hulda Schnakenburg is commissioned to complete E.T.A. Hoffmann’s unfinished opera Arthur of Britain, or The Magnanimous Cuckold; and the scholarly priest Simon Darcourt finds himself charged with writing the libretto.

“Invention has always been Robertson Davies’s strength. He tells terrific stories that twist around and double back on themselves in surprising ways and, characteristically, combines them with intriguing, arcane information.”—The New York Times

“Davies’ fiction is animated by his scorn for the ironclad systems that claim to explain the whole of life. Messy, magical, high-spirited life bubbles up between the cracks.”—South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Robertson Davies

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) was born and raised in Ontario, and was educated at a variety of schools, including Upper Canada College, Queen’s University, and Balliol College, Oxford. He had three successive careers: as an actor with the Old Vic Company in England; as publisher of the Peterborough Examiner; and as university professor and first Master of Massey College at the University of Toronto, from which he retired in 1981 with the title of Master Emeritus. He was one of Canada’s most distinguished men of letters, with several volumes of plays and collections of essays, speeches, and belles lettres to his credit. As a novelist, he gained worldwide fame for his three trilogies: The Salterton Trilogy, The Deptford Trilogy, and The Cornish Trilogy, and for later novels Murther and Walking Spirits and The Cunning Man. His career was marked by many honors: He was the first Canadian to be made an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he was a Companion of the Order of Canada, and he received honorary degrees from twenty-six American, Canadian, and British universities.