''Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack'' is a book published by

McClelland and Stewart McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is owned by Penguin Random House of Canada, a branch of Penguin Random House, the international book publishing division of German media giant Bertelsmann. History It was founded ...

in 1967. It is the third and last of the

Samuel Marchbanks Samuel Marchbanks is a fictional character who wrote editorials for the ''Peterborough Examiner'' newspaper in the small city of Peterborough, Ontario, Peterborough, Ontario, northeast of Toronto, during the middle of the 20th century. Marchbank ...

books by Canadian novelist and journalist

Robertson Davies William Robertson Davies (28 August 1913 – 2 December 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best known and most popular authors and one of its most distinguished " men of letters" ...

. It follows ''

The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks ''The'' is a grammatical article in English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The ...

'' and '' The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks''.

Background

Davies created the

character whilst editor of the ''

Peterborough Examiner ''The Peterborough Examiner'' is a newspaper that services Peterborough, Ontario and area. The paper started circulation in 1847, and is currently owned by Torstar and operated by its Metroland division. Between 1942 and 1955, it was edited by C ...

'' newspaper in the small city of

Peterborough, Ontario Peterborough ( ) is a city on the Otonabee River in Ontario, Canada, about 125 kilometres (78 miles) northeast of Toronto. According to the 2021 Census, the population of the City of Peterborough was 83,651. The population of the Peterborough ...

, northeast of

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

. He wrote the first column under the Marchbanks pseudonym in 1944. Davies first started work on ''Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack'' in 1953, but the manuscript was rejected by his publisher, Clarke Irwin. Davies filed the rejected manuscript away, not to return to it for a decade. He resubmitted it for publication in 1966, this time choosing McClelland and Stewart as the prospective publisher. The book is presented in the form of an

almanac An almanac (also spelled almanack and almanach) is a regularly published listing of a set of current information about one or multiple subjects. It includes information like weather forecasting, weather forecasts, farmers' sowing, planting dates ...

, based on the signs of the

Zodiac The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north and south celestial latitude of the ecliptic – the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. Within this zodiac ...

Reception

Jacqueline Hayes, writing in the ''

Waterloo Region Record The ''Waterloo Region Record'' (formerly ''The Record'') is the daily newspaper covering Regional Municipality of Waterloo, Ontario, Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada, including the cities of Kitchener, Ontario, Kitchener, Waterloo, Ontario, Water ...

'', compared the book to the previous Marchbanks books, found the work lacking. She thought that when it wasn't "so low-keyed as to be slumber-inducing", it was too "esoteric" in an uninteresting way. '' The Toronto Star's'' Robert Fulford found it strange how little seemed to have changed in Marchbanks' world since the original 40s books, giving the work a "a charm that is, at best, antique".

References

{{Robertson Davies Short story collections by Robertson Davies 1967 short story collections McClelland & Stewart books