Collection search - Robertson Davies fonds [multiple media]

Record information – Brief
1
Robertson Davies fonds [multiple media]

Hierarchical level:

Fonds

Date:

1810-1995.

Reference:

R4939-0-2-E, MG30-D362

Type of material:

Textual material, Photographs, Art, Moving images, Sound recordings, Objects (including medals and pins), Architectural and technical drawings

Found in:

Archives / Collections and Fonds

Item ID number:

105869

Context of this record:

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Robertson Davies fonds
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Record information – Details
Fonds includes:

144 lower level description(s)
View lower level description(s)

Date(s):

1810-1995.

Place of creation:

Ontario

Extent:

23.72 m of textual records.
ca. 624 photographs : b&w, b&w negatives, b&w prints, col., col. prints, col. slides.
4 audio cassettes (ca. 3 h, 20 min).
2 video cassettes (ca. 2 h, 7 min).
1 audio reel (ca. 5 min).
7 prints : offset lithographs.
10 drawings : pencil.
5 watercolours : watercolour over pencil, watercolour over pen and ink.
18 medallic objects : gold, silver, and bronze.
1 architectural drawing

Language of material:

English
Accession:

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Robertson Davies collection [graphic material]

Robertson Davies collection [graphic material]

Robertson Davies fonds [textual record]
Scope and content:

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Fonds contains textual records consisting of the personal and literary papers of Robertson Davies and a collection of archival documents on the career of British actor-manager, Sir John Martin-Harvey, collected by Robertson Davies. The fonds is arranged in the following series' (described in 64 series descriptions): Personal Correspondence; Business Correspondence; Business Correspondence, Requests; Correspondence, Additional Material (5 series descriptions); Diaries; Pocket Notebooks; Literary Mss., Verse; Literary Mss., Drama; Literary Mss., Drama, Additional Material (4 series descriptions); Literary Mss., Short Stories; Literary Mss., Short Stories, Additional Material (3 series descriptions); Literary Mss., Sketches; Literary Mss., Sketches, Additional Material (3 series descriptions); Literary Mss., Novels; Literary Mss., Novels, Additional Material (3 series descriptions); Literary Mss., Essays, Addresses and Articles; Literary Mss., Essays, Addresses and Articles, Additional Material (5 series descriptions); Teaching Notes; Clippings; Scrapbooks; Scrapbooks additional material; Memorabilia ; Memorabilia, additional material; Invitationans and Events; Travel Memorabilia; Theatrical Files; Books, Plays and Libretti subject files; Family Memorabilia and Diaries, additiona material (2 series descriptions). Fonds also contains 7 series of Sir John Martin-Harvey material: Personal Correspondence; Productions; Speeches and Articles; Book of Martin-Harvey; General Theatre Material; Sir Henry Irving; and Family and Posthumous Material.

Fonds contains photographs pertaining to the works, life, career, and professional activities of Robertson Davies as playwright, novelist and scholar. Included in the fonds are fifty photographs pertaining to the career of Sir John Martin-Harvey.

Fonds contains five watercolours and ten drawings, including set designs, caricatures, portraits, costume sketches, and figure studies in costume.

Fonds contains seven prints, 1947-1985, relating to the career and interests of Robertson Davies; posters advertising the publication of Davies' novels, "Murther and Walking Spirits", "The Cunning Man", "What's Bred in the Bone" and "The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks", as well as a poster advertising a lecture by Davies on "Art and Technology".

Fonds consists of sound and video recordings of lectures and readings by Robertson Davies, 1973-1987.

Fonds contains medallic objects including the Stephen Leacock Medal, Toronto Arts Award, Maclean's Honour Roll Medal, medals from the National Arts Club, the National Ballet of Canada, the Banff School of Fine Arts, the St. Lawrence Centre and the Canadian Conference of the Arts.

Provenance:

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Davies, Robertson, 1913-1995
Additional name(s):

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Martin-Harvey, John, 1863-1944

Timothy Findley (1930-2002)

King, William Lyon Mackenzie, 1874-1950
Biography/Administrative history:

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Davies, Robertson, 1913-1995 : Born in 1913, William Robertson Davies, author, playright and critic, was raised in the Ontario towns of Thamesville, Renfrew, and Kingston. He was educated at Upper Canada College, Queen's University, and Balliol College, Oxford, and spent two years with the Old Vic Company before returning to Canada in 1940.

For twenty years, Davies was publisher and editor of the Peterborough "Examiner". During this period, he was actively involved in theatre and wrote plays for both amateur and professional theatre, including "Overlaid" (1948), "Fortune, My Foe" (1949), "At My Heart's Core" (1950), "A Jig for the Gypsy" (1954) and "Hunting Stuart" (1955).

Davies' weekly columns for the "Examiner" were collected in "The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks" (1947) and "The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks" (1949), and other journalism pieces were collected in "A Voice from the Attic" (1960). He wrote introductions to reprints of the work of humorist Stephen Leacock, edited an anthology, and published a critical study, "Stephen Leacock" (1970). He also wrote extensively about Shakespeare and the Stratford Festival, on whose board he sat, 1953-1971, and about theatre in general. From 1960 to 1981, Davies taught English and drama at the University of Toronto, where he was appointed the founding Master of Massey College in 1961.

In 1951, Davies published his first novel, "Tempest-Tost", the introduction to what is now known as the Salterton trilogy, along with "Leaven of Malice" (1954) and "A Mixture of Frailties" (1958). This trilogy was followed by the Deptford trilogy, which included the novels "Fifth Business" (1970), "The Manticore" (1972) and "World of Wonders" (1975), and by the Cornish trilogy, which included the novels "Rebel Angels" (1981), "What's Bred in the Bone" (1984) and "The Lyre of Orpheus" (1988). Davies drew on his own family history for the novel "Murther and Walking Spirits", which was published in 1991. His last novel, "The Cunning Man", appeared in 1994. Davies was also the author of a collection of short stories, "High Spirits" (1982).

Robertson Davies was the subject of a biography, "Robertson Davies: Man of Myth" (1994), by Judith Skelton Grant, as well as the subject of a number of critical studies. He received many honours for his literary achievements during his lifetime, including the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, Governor General's Award, Lorne Pierce Award, Order of Canada, and many honorary degrees. He was a member of the Royal Society of Canada and the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Robertson Davies died in December 1995.

Finding aid:

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Textual records: (Paper) The finding aid is a file list, followed by extensive notes on the Sir John Martin-Harvey Collection compiled for Robertson Davies by his daughter Jennifer Surridge. MSS1763 (90: Open)
http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf001/p000000361.pdf

Textual records: (Electronic) Finding aid. MSS1763
http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf001/p000000361.pdf

Moving images and sound recordings: (Electronic) See MISACS for item level descriptions.

Additional information:

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General note:

The papers were received in 1988, 1991 and 1994 from Robertson Davies of Toronto, Ontario, and in 1996, 1998, 2002 and 2005 from his widow, Brenda Davies.
An Ottawa Drama League playscript of Fortune, My Foe was transferred from the National Library of Canada in 1993 and two Robertson Davies letters to Meic Stephens were acquired from Colin Huggett of North Wales, U.K., in 1996.
There is considerable overlap between the series, which have been arranged to preserve the original order as much as possible. Researchers should note that correspondence can be found among the literary manuscripts as well as in the correspondence series and that material relating to specific literary works can be found in the correspondence series and pocket notebook series as well as in the literary manuscripts series.

Arrangement note:

In terms of posthumous accessions, arrangement was continued from earlier patterns (i.e. of having separate series for additional material in each accession). No attempt was made to combine these series as subseries'.
Subject heading:

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Authors, Canadian, 1933-1993 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Authors, Canadian - Diaries, n.d., 1957-1990 Canada Council

Authors, Canadian - Manuscripts, 1937-1988 Lucinda Vardey

Martin-Harvey Family, [1924-1988] Lord Beaverbrook

Men actors - Great Britain, [1885-1947] Yousuf Karsh

Authors, Canadian - Correspondence, 1933-1993 Louis Applebaum

Drama festivals, [1944-1993] Mavor Moore

Playwriting, [1930-1992] Gordon Sinclair

Playwrights, [1930-1992] Viking Press

Costume, [1810-1979] Penguin Books

Theatre, [1810-1979] Macmillan Company of Canada

Stage managers, [1810-1979] McClelland and Stewart

Stage management, [1810-1979] Curtis Brown

Willis Kingsley Wing

Michael Langham

Margaret Laurence

Judith Grant

Janet Turnbull

John Irving

Arthur James Marshall Smith

Robert Weaver

W.O. Mitchell

Eric Nicol

George Bowering

Marian Engel

Hugh MacLennan

Scott Young

Earl Birney

Margaret Atwood

Patrick Watson

William Toye

Gordon Lish

Morris Bishop

Graham McInnes

R.H. Thomson

Alfred Knopf

Northrop Frye

Sir John Gielgud

Sir Tyrone Guthrie

Edmund Wilson

Vincent Massey

Peter Gzowski

Rev. Frederick Langbridge

Count Maurice Maeterlinck

Rafael Sabatini

Laurence Irving, Second Earl of Lytton

Sir Henry Irving

Sir John Martin-Harvey

Prime Minister H.H. Asquith
Source:

Private

Related control no.:

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117-020047-8
120-020027-6
121-020274-3
122-020127-8
1989/0089 MSS
1992-395 DAP
1993/0289
1994/171
1995-167 DAP
1996-0275 MISA
1996-03004-3
1996-03053-1
1996/0033
1996/0119
1997-289 DAP
1997-291 DAP
1999-01147-3
2002-00652-0
2008-00380-9
3005 (1973-06-18)
91-366
95-134
97-046
97-047
97-048
MG30-D362

Former archival reference no.:

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MG30-D362
Ordering and viewing options

Conditions of access:

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Access restriction document

http://data2.archives.ca/pdf/pdf001/r000000453.pdf

Textual records

[Consultation96 Restrictions vary]
Textual records: Access restrictions.

Finding aid box [FA 1763] 134

[Consultation 10 Closed]

Graphic (photo)

[Consultation90 Open]

Graphic (art)

[Consultation90 Open]

Volume [R4939] 144

[Consultation 90 Open]

Moving images (video)

[Consultation90 Open]
9 drawings and 3 watercolours (accession 1995-167 DAP).

Sound recordings

[Consultation90 Open]

Object

[Consultation90 Open]

Box [1997-289] 2000845820

[Consultation 90 Open]

Architectural: technical drawings

[Consultation90 Open]

Terms of use:

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350 photographs, 9 drawings and 3 watercolours, [ca.1890s-1980s] (accession 1995-167 DAP): No restrictions. Copyright expired on items more than 50 years old. Various copyrights on items less than 50 years old. Credit: Name of photographer / National Archives of Canada.
79 photographs, 18 medals, and 7 prints, 1947-1985 (accession 1997-289 DAP): No restrictions. Various copyrights on items less than 50 years old. Copyright expired on items more than 50 years old. Photographs by Ralph Greenhill less than 50 years old, copyright: Estate of Ralph Greenhill, c/o Dr. Pauline Greenhill, Dept. of Women's Studies, University of Winnipeg. Credit: Name of photographer / National Archives of Canada / Copy negative no.
Moving images and sound recordings: Reproduction and use in any form requires the written permission of the copyright owner and the written permission of the donor.
23 photographs and 2 watercolours, [n.d.] (accession 1992-395 DAP): No restrictions. Copyright on selected photographs belongs to Robertson Davies. Credit: National Archives of Canada.
1 drawing, [between 1980-1990] (accession 1997-291 DAP): No restriction. Copyright belongs to Globe and Mail. Credit National Archives of Canada.

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Date modified:: 2024-04-09