Leaven of Malice

In Leaven of malice, the university corridors and newspaper offices of small-town Ontario provide an ideal backdrop for Robertson Davies to exercise his genius for creating memorable characters and comical situations. Winner of the 1954 Leacock Award, the novel combines sustained humour with a more sinister undercurrent, in Davies' seductively elegant prose.

Robertson Davies (1913-1995) was an internationally acclaimed author, actor, publisher, and, finally, professor at the University of Toronto. The author of twelve novels and several volumes of essays and plays, he was the first Canadian to be inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.