Tempest Tost - Paperback

by Robertson Davies (Author)

"With a sure comic touch, Davies assembles his cast of characters and lets them make fools of themselves . . . in the best Shakespearean tradition."--The Emerald City Book Review

Weaving a tapestry of wonderfully developed characters, smoldering rivalries, and witty satire, Robertson Davies introduces the first book in the Salterton Trilogy.

An amateur production of The Tempest provides a colorful backdrop for a hilarious look at unrequited love. Mathematics teacher Hector Mackilwraith, stirred and troubled by Shakespeare's play, falls in love with the beautiful heiress Griselda Webster. When Griselda shows she has plans of her own, Hector despairs on the play's opening night.

"High comedy with a spice of satire to give it savor."--Montreal Gazette

"An exercise in puckish persiflage."--Toronto Star

"Hilarious, satirical, witty and clever."--Edmonton Journal

"By turns humorous and sympathetic, Davies shows us that he knows his stuff, even in this, his first book."--AllReaders.com

"It would not be a bad thing for more writers to read and be inspired by Davies's example of intelligent, emotionally resonant fiction, or for more readers to discover its pleasures."--The Emerald City Book Review

Author Biography

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.