This challenging, ambitious novel is one of Davies’ most entertaining, and it shows his abundant skills in grand form.

What is bred into Francis Cornish? One strand is the isolation of living in the Canadian frontier town of Blairlogie as a young boy and the double isolation of being teased by other children. As a member of the privileged class, Francis finds himself in a complex exile, especially as his parents leave him to his own devices and to the ministrations of peculiar relatives and household employees. Davies gives lavish attention to this place and to his hero’s forebears.

From Francis’ maternal grandfather, James Ignatious “Hamish” McRory, the hero inherits a surprising toughness and some of his aesthetic gifts. McRory, who was brought to an untamed Canada as a boy in the middle of the nineteenth century, rises to become a lumber baron, a banker, and a member of the Canadian Senate. Francis knows him best as an amateur photographer who introduced his grandson to the magic of light. Married to Marie-Louise Thibodeau, Senator McRory works to build a liberal base of power. Although a Scot, he is Catholic, and he intends to maintain that Catholic inheritance even in the Ottawa Valley where the Presbyterian Scotch have held sway over the larger population of French Catholics and the laborer-servant stratum of Poles.

The senator’s first daughter, Mary-Jacobine, is his darling. For her he makes great plans that culminate in an appearance before Edward VII. At this pinnacle of success, Mary-Jim (as she is called), flushed with excitement, champagne, and the power of her own spectacular beauty, allows herself to be compromised by a temporary hotel employee. Her mother, in spite of her rigorous Catholicism, explores various exercises to end the unwanted pregnancy, but all the jumping and horse-riding result only in a deformed, severely retarded son.

Major Francis Chegwidden Cornish, who attends the McRorys during their London adventure, is a man with polish and practical clear-sightedness. He has a name; he needs a marriage into money to secure his future. At first, the McRorys resist his overtures, but a deal is made when they become alarmed over Mary-Jim’s condition. This marriage of convenience works well because each partner respects the other’s selfishness and leaves room for it. Each also supports the other’s drive for social prominence, and neither finds time for their children.

Mary-Jim’s unwanted child is named Francis. Some five years later, when Mary-Jim becomes pregnant by her husband, this earlier child—an ordeal and an embarrassment to the ambitious couple—is allowed publicly to die. In fact, he is alive, sequestered in an upstairs, off-limits room in the senator’s house. Mary-Jim herself has been led to believe that her son is dead, already having outlived the predictions of the family doctor.

To the major’s biological son, this first Francis becomes an emblem of feared possibilities. For the hero, this misshapen, demented namesake—even more isolated, more removed from parental care, less able to control his animal impulses—serves as a grotesque double (one of many instances of doubling in the novel). It is only when the first Francis finally dies that the second begins to blossom fully, though the image of the “Looner” haunts him thereafter—a warning of how much of what man becomes is subject to forces over which he has no control. The case of the first Francis seriously complicates the question of “what’s bred in the bone.”

Reared apart from his parents, Francis Cornish finds a spiritual mother in his great-aunt, Mary-Benedetta McRory, who serves as an upper servant in the senator’s house. Mary-Ben feeds Francis a tantalizing, partially inhibiting, but imaginatively stimulating brand of Catholicism—this in spite of the fact that Major Cornish has insisted on a Protestant upbringing as part of the deal with the McRorys. Mary-Ben’s collection of religious pictures intrigues Francis; their images and manner sink into his sensibilities. Victoria Cameron, the family cook and a stern Calvinist, is a kind of alter-ego double for Mary-Ben and the other mother figure for the hero, while Victoria’s friend, a strange fellow named Zadok Hoyle, serves as Francis’ father figure.

Zadok—groom to the McRory stable, carriage and hearse driver for a local businessman, and veteran of the Boer War—befriends Francis and encourages his art. Zadok’s own arts include those of embalming (ironic, given Francis’ later career doing somewhat fraudulent restoration work on old portraits), and through watching Zadok practice his profession, Francis finds subjects for his self-taught (with the aid of a how-to book) figure drawing. To complicate the hero’s sense of himself, it is Victoria and Zadok who are charged with the care of the first Francis. So, by these coincidences, both the hero and his double have the same nurturers. (Only the heavenly narrators know that this same Zakok is the biological father of the first Francis.)

Francis is left to find his own path, though Daimon Maimon claims that he made all the proper moves that any responsible daimon could make. The aspiring artist seizes what opportunities come his way. The major, whose prominent monocle suggests his ability to look into things deeply but narrowly, imparts some of this trait to his son. Moreover, he maneuvers Francis into the world of secret intelligence gathering—the major’s own specialty. Otherwise, the father keeps his distance. Francis attends the University of Toronto and then Oxford University, where his young adulthood becomes severely complicated. In presenting these complications, Davies shows an artist’s mastery over all that Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and their followers have taught the world about human personality.

The bulk of the novel elaborates Francis’ growth as an artist, his entanglements as a spy, and his relationships with two women. Every episode is rich with wit, with exciting settings and situations, and with intriguing aesthetic and ethical concerns. Repeatedly, the reader is assured that the working out of Francis’ fate stems from what was “bred in the bone.” The intricate webs of cause and effect are always convincing, highly imaginative, and rarely predictable. Davies’ genius resides simultaneously in his probing of humanist and religious values, his mastery over the smallest details of craft, and his blazing inventiveness.

At Oxford, Francis is used by his promiscuous and beautiful cousin, Ismay, who leads him to believe that she is pregnant by him. She is a coarse version of the Arthurian lady fair he imagines her to be. After their marriage, she reveals who the true father is and soon leaves Francis to join her lover. Ismay is a double for Francis’ own mother; his attraction to her and his consequent sense of betrayal stem from this mirroring. At the same time, Ismay is treated as part of Francis’ quest to complete himself by finding and blending with his female side, a quest begun in his youth when he would posture before the mirror in women’s garments. Clearly enough, one thing bred into Francis is a need planted by Mary-Jim’s indifference toward her maternal responsibilities.

Later, Francis meets a woman, Ruth Nesbit, who shares his interests and is worthy of his affection, but she is taken from him by the wartime bombing of London. In one way or another, all of Francis’ attachments to women seem doomed.

Doomed as well is his career as an artist. Though his skills blossom, he is aesthetically at home only with the Renaissance art of religious passion and shared cultural symbols. His own inclinations and his arduous apprenticeship under the master restorer Tancred Saraceni prepare him to produce masterpieces in the Renaissance manner, but he finds no way of developing a contemporary style of his own. After his involvement in deliciously devious anti-Nazi intrigues, he finds himself a minor celebrity in the art world, then a respected art consultant and collector, and finally a reclusive eccentric. These latter periods of Francis’ life are summarized briefly. Indeed, a possible flaw in this novel is the imbalance of attention paid to the last forty years of his life after the meticulous treatment of the first thirty. Nevertheless, the overall impression is that the patterns are so well-fixed that further elaboration would risk repetition. Whatever the ebbs and flows of Francis’ worldly success, Davies insists on the magnitude of the inner Francis as he struggles to know himself and to accept his fate.

Davies’ vision of Francis has many levels, one of which is an allegory of Canada. Like his country, Francis is an uneasy mix of Catholic and Protestant, as well as English, Scotch, and French. The turmoil and tension of this dislocated spiritual and ethnic diversity parallels the uncertain identity of the Canadian nation. Francis is an individual of great resources and great potential, but, like the country he reflects, he can never find his creative selfhood—his aesthetic and cultural signature. The forces which play upon him and within him are too large and contradictory to synthesize into a new and dynamic entity. Though much greater in potential than many of his contemporaries, Francis Cornish is left to play a relatively obscure role in the affairs of art. Such also, suggests Davies, is the role of Canada in world affairs.

As Davies builds Francis’ education in art, he simultaneously educates readers. Running through What’s Bred in the Bone is a lesson in art history and in the philosophy of art—a lesson that glows with love. Davies’ descriptive prose handles any subject with clarity and vigor, but his descriptions of paintings, of the process of painting, and of the ways in which art communicates, enriches, and ennobles human experience are truly stunning. Ironically, his plot requires that he set this kind of material against other aspects of the artist’s world: art as national treasure, art as business, art as political instrument. Indeed, much of the novel is concerned with the paradoxical relationship of art and money.

Francis Cornish has something of the McRory banker’s blood in him. He wants full value for his money. He wants to be a creative spender. Such a summary sounds crude, but Davies makes this strand work in his complex characterization. The Francis Cornish who leaves behind a significant collection has done something to shape art history and the future of art. He has had an impact on what is valued and on the value itself. Francis Cornish, a rather mysterious figure who is nevertheless easy enough to overlook, would make an excellent subject for a biography.

To other personages invented by Robertson Davies, Cornish is certainly real, and after he dies, those left to administer the Cornish Foundation for Promotion of Arts and Humane Scholarship (three characters central to Davies’ The Rebel Angels, 1982) appoint one of their number to tell his story—a story about which they know surprisingly little. The Reverend Simon Darcourt has done some research but has found only more questions. Arthur Cornish (Francis’ nephew) and Arthur’s wife, Maria, debate with Darcourt the wisdom of looking into the past of a man whose dealings are reputed to be somewhat shady. Might they not turn up something to discredit the great Canadian financial empire—the Cornish Trust? The novel opens with these deliberations. Then the recording angel and the daimon take over, revealing matters that even the skilled Reverend Darcourt could never unravel. As the novel ends, Darcourt is given the green light to write Francis Cornish’s life, and the reader is left to wonder—knowing all that there is to be discovered—what kind of success Darcourt will have.

In What’s Bred in the Bone, Robertson Davies’ success is complete. The novel is a formal triumph, a deep well of human compassion and understanding, and a treasure of learning and wit.

What's Bred in the Bone unfolds as an intriguing exploration of the life of Francis Cornish, crafted in the style of a biography. The narrative journeys through time, commencing with the rich tapestry of Francis's familial and cultural roots and culminating in the inevitable end of his life. Yet, this is no ordinary biography—it harbors a captivating twist. Readers are invited to delve into "the record, or the film, or the tape or whatever it must be called" that chronicles Francis's life, meticulously archived by the mysterious Angel of Biography.

The novel serves as a potential repository of material for a biography of Cornish, perhaps awaiting the pen of Simon Darcourt. Throughout the tale, brief dialogues between two ethereal entities punctuate the story, consistently connecting the unfolding events to the ultimate revelation of Francis Cornish's character. These entities, be they recording angels or Greek daimons, symbolize essential elements of the human saga. As Darcourt muses, the Recording Angel "exists as a metaphor for all that illimitable history of humanity and inhumanity and inanimate life and myth that has ever been." Meanwhile, the daimons—"spirits of the Golden Age"—act as unseen guardians, not moral overseers but "manifestations of the artistic conscience," ready to bestow additional vigor or offer a whisper of guidance when paths diverge from what should be.

In their exchanges, it is often Maimas who shoulders the more intricate role. While the angel of biography merely observes facts in their stark simplicity, the daimon delves deeper, eager to perceive how these individual truths mold and define a man's essence.

The intriguing title of What's Bred in the Bone finds its roots in an age-old English adage: "What's Bred in the Bone will not Out of the Flesh." In the novel's prologue, Simon Darcourt confides to Arthur and Maria Cornish his struggles with writing the official biography of Arthur's enigmatic uncle, the late Francis Cornish, commissioned by the Cornish Foundation. Darcourt is stymied by the realization that he lacks a true understanding of Cornish's essence. The tangible facts "don't add up to the man we knew." Overseeing this conundrum are two ethereal observers, the Lesser Zadkiel (the Angel of Biography) and Maimas (Cornish’s personal daimon during his lifetime), who resolve to delve into the chronicles of Francis Cornish’s life. This prologue gives way to the unfolding of Cornish's story, punctuated by the spirits’ occasional reflections on Francis's character development. The narrative divides into two poignant sections: "What Was Bred in the Bone?" and "What Would Not Out of the Flesh?" The former paints a portrait of Francis's early years in Canada, culminating in his graduation from the University of Toronto at twenty-three. The latter chronicles his later life across Europe and Canada, from his Oxford days until his demise in Toronto at seventy-two, in 1981.

This first section delves into the influences and events that molded Francis's character. His parents, largely absent during his formative years in the quaint town of Blairlogie, Ontario, just sixty miles northwest of Ottawa, have minimal impact. Blairlogie, with its predominantly Roman Catholic population of French and Polish descent, was a tapestry of cultures, where the socially elite Scots, who were Presbyterians, stood apart. Francis's lineage did not easily align with these groups. His grandfather, Hamish McCrory, though arriving from Scotland as a child, was deeply entrenched in Roman Catholicism, marrying a French woman. Francis's mother, a daughter of Hamish, tied the knot with an Englishman who insisted that their offspring be reared in the Anglican tradition. Thus, Francis grew up in an Anglican household steeped in Roman Catholic traditions, even while some servants, like his nurse Bella-Mae of the Salvation Army and the stern Presbyterian Victoria Cameron, were staunch Protestants. Under this roof, his distressed brother, known as the Looner, was under the watchful eye of Victoria in the attic, as Francis endured Carlyle Rural School, surrounded by rough country children, where he honed his survival skills in an unfriendly world.

At home, the formidable presence of Aunt Mary-Ben, Hamish McCrory’s sister, loomed large. She presided over a domain of "pious refinement," esteeming painting as the ultimate art, for it revealed "God's work truly" through its moral narratives. Much later, Francis recounts to Manfred Saraceni how Aunt Mary-Ben insisted that art conveyed moral stories. Her devout Roman Catholicism was counterbalanced by the austere Calvinism of the Presbyterian Victoria Cameron, who both cooked for the family and tended to the Looner. She dismissed Aunt Mary-Ben's "religious pictures and fancy prayers" as mere "R.C. self-deception," likening life to a "fancy-dress party." For Victoria, the essence of life was a bitter struggle against sin, where happiness equated to transgression. Life, to her, was not about joy but about resisting temptation.

In Francis's youth, the influential male figures were his grandfather Hamish McCrory and Zadok Hoyle, who served as both driver and groom for Devinney's undertaking parlor and McCrory himself. Through these men, Francis received his initial artistic tutelage. His grandfather, an avid photographer of Blairlogie and its residents, often took Francis along on his excursions, imparting lessons on light and shadow. Meanwhile, Zadok Hoyle, who tended to horses and occasionally worked as an embalmer at Devinney's, invited Francis to assist during embalming nights, allowing him to sketch the departed. Eventually, Francis left Blairlogie for Colborne College in Toronto, a prestigious institution for the elite, where he became known as New Money rather than Old Money. Here, he gained notoriety as an aesthete, due to his art expertise and burgeoning interest in Arthurian legends. During this time, his father mentioned espionage as a potential career path. Francis then spent four years at the College of Saint John and the Holy Ghost (Spook) within the University of Toronto, earning the Chancellor's Prize in Classics at twenty-three, a mark of prestige despite classics being unfashionable.

Francis defied easy categorization. As a wealthy Canadian, his interests in art and classics held no esteem in his homeland. Socially, he evolved as a solitary figure, shaped by a household filled with adults espousing diverse religious and political views and by his school days where he faced exclusion for his uniqueness. Spiritually, he was caught between the genteel moralism of Aunt Mary-Ben and the rigid Calvinism of Victoria Cameron. This eclectic background continued to influence him throughout his life. It was the indelible mark left by what had been bred in the bone, impossible to erase.

In the early Thirties, amidst the simmering chaos of Europe poised on the brink of war, he ventured to England to immerse himself in the hallowed halls of Oxford. Here, Francis found himself drawn into two captivating worlds: the clandestine realm of espionage and the meticulous craft of art restoration. Despite the fervor of the era's political movements, including communism and the Spanish Civil War, he remained aloof from the popular causes, opting instead to lend his talents to covert intelligence efforts pro bono.

Under the tutelage of the masterful Tancred Saraceni, Francis honed his skills in both the restoration and cunning replication of ancient paintings. Saraceni led him into an audacious conspiracy aimed at deceiving the German government, which involved exchanging genuine treasures from German art museums for questionable pieces of indigenous art. These pieces, expertly enhanced at the Schloss Dusterstein in southern Germany, were smuggled out only to be returned to Germany. By the time the turmoil of World War II subsided, Francis's expertise in art had earned him international acclaim. He was appointed to lead a commission by the Allied Forces, tasked with the noble mission of restoring artworks to their rightful homes.

Eventually, Francis returned to his homeland of Canada, with aspirations to leave his mark on the Canadian art scene. However, he found his innovative visions met with resistance. Undeterred, he turned to amassing an impressive and varied collection of art. Upon his passing, he left behind a substantial and diverse assortment, a testament to his enduring passion for the world of art.

What's Bred in the Bone defies simple categorization. In a review of this intriguing work, Gerald Jay Goldberg described it as "a peculiar amalgam of mystery story, family saga, espionage adventure and portrait of the artist," highlighting its unique blend. Although these are beloved genres of the twentieth century, Davies's novel dances between them without settling into a singular category.

Jo Allen Bradham perceives the novel as joining the ranks of Virginia Woolf's Orlando (1928) and Steven Millhauser's Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer, 1943-1954 (1972) as exemplars of biographical satire. Furthermore, Bradham identifies elements of allegory woven into the narrative, a time-honored form meant to illuminate man's journey through life, akin to such masterpieces as Dante's Divine Comedy (c.1310-1321) and Chaucer's unfinished poem, House of Fame.

These introspective allegories are further enriched by the echoes of Langland's Middle English alliterative poem, Piers Plowman, and Edmund Spenser's majestic allegorical poem, Faerie Queene (1590), crafting a narrative tapestry that spans the ages with its timeless inquiry into the human experience.

What's Bred in the Bone forms the compelling second act of the Cornish trilogy's literary saga. Preceding it, The Rebel Angels (1981) delves into the complex proceedings surrounding the legacy of Francis Cornish. In this tale, the spotlight falls on Simon Darcourt alongside Arthur and Maria Cornish, whose entwined destinies culminate in their marriage by the novel's close.

The Lyre of Orpheus (1988) unfolds the story's final chapter, where the Cornish Foundation breathes life into an opera composed by E. T. A. Hoffmann, steering its completion and grand production. This vibrant narrative weaves together the threads of creativity and legacy with unrivaled finesse.