Deze serie duikt in het ingewikkelde weefsel van mensenlevens, waar de lotsbestemmingen van geleerden, priesters en onverwachte erfgenamen met elkaar verweven raken in een meeslepende vertelling. Het biedt een wijze en geestige verkenning van liefde, kunst en de donkere kanten van de menselijke psyche. Elk deel belooft een boeiend verhaal dat diepe motivaties en onverwachte wendingen onderzoekt.
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. Davies weaves together the destinies of this remarkable cast of characters, creating a wise and witty portrait of love, murder, and scholarship at a modern university.
Francis Cornish was always good at keeping secrets. From the well-hidden family secret of his childhood to his mysterious encounters with a small -town embalmer, an expert art restorer, a Bavarian countess, and various masters of espionage, the events in Francis's life were not always what they seemed. In this wonderfully ingenious portrait of an art expert and collector of international renown, Robertson Davies has created a spellbinding tale of artistic triumph and heroic deceit. It is a tale told in stylish, elegant prose, endowed with lavish portions of Davies's wit and wisdom.
There is an important decisionto be made. The Cornish Foundation, set up with money left by the late Francis Cornish, connoisseur, collector, and notable eccentric, must decide upon wat worthy undertaking next to dispense a portion of its considerable funds.
The University of St John and the Holy Ghost (known affectionately as Spook) has a problem - and an opportunity. Strange, eccentric art patron and collector Francis Cornish has died and faculty members have been made executors of his complicated will. But in the realization of their duties, they find themselves drawn into Cornish's bizarre, secretive and mystical world. In this spellbinding trilogy a host of memorable characters - defrocked, mischief-making monks, half-mad professors, gypsies and musical geniuses - become entangled in a story that involves theft, perjury, scholarship, murder, love, and the squandering of plenty of cash.