For Your Eye Alone: The Letters of Robertson Davies, 1976-1995

Patricia Morley is professor emerita of English and Canadian Studies at
Concordia University and an avid outdoor recreationist. She is also the
author of The Mountain Is Moving: Japanese Women’s Lives, Kurlek, and
Margaret Laurence: The Long Journey Hom

Robertson Davies, one of Canada’s premier novelists, loved writing in
many forms. He also loved an opportunity to express his strong opinions.
It should come as no surprise that his voluminous correspondence ran to
thousands of letters. Selected and edited by Davies’ biographer, the
letters in this collection attest to the incredible energy, wit, and
intellectual zest that mark his work.

Davies’s many occupations included acting. In her preface, the editor
observes that there was always an element of performance in Davies’s
writing. The letters certainly reflect a penchant for
self-dramatization, but they provide us as well with a rich portrait of
the private man. They draw on Davies’s memories of his early years in
Thamesville, Renfrew, Kingston, and Toronto and reveal his feelings
about everything from his parents to Canadian writers.

To old friends such as Professor Gordon Roper, Davies exposed his
insecurity and many of his deepest concerns. In 1979, when Roper was
preparing a book on him, Davies wrote: “You have known for many years
that many writers are two-sided—good father, kind colleague … BUT
also raging egotists who would boil their grannies down for soup, rob
the blind and kick the crutches from under the paraplegic.” There is
more in this vein. Davies feared that his friend would try to conceal
his dark side.

Grant structures her selections chronologically, connecting each period
with Davies’s major publications and research. A lengthy index allows
us to access the letters by topics, book titles, and proper names. For
Your Eye Alone is a thoroughly professional collection of fascinating
letters.