Books like What's bred in the bone by Robertson Davies
Robertson Davies presents a masterfully plotted tale following art expert and collector Francis Cornish, whose life is punctuated by a series of enigmas—from a concealed family secret to encounters with a small-town embalmer, a renowned art restorer, an enigmatic Bavarian countess, and covert operatives. The narrative unfolds as a sophisticated blend of artistry, deception, and personal revelation, showcasing Davies’s sharp wit and elegant prose.
First publish date: 1985
Genre: Historical Fiction/20th Century Historical Fiction
Authors: Robertson Davies
★
★
★
★
★
4.0 (1 community ratings)
How are these books recommended?
The books recommended for What's bred in the bone by Robertson Davies are shaped by reader interaction. Votes on how closely books relate, user ratings, and community comments all help refine these recommendations and highlight books readers genuinely find similar in theme, ideas, and overall reading experience.
Have you read any of these books?
Your votes, ratings, and comments help improve recommendations and make it easier
for other readers to discover books they’ll enjoy.
Books similar to What's bred in the bone (21 similar books)
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece examines the glittering yet hollow glamour of the Roaring Twenties as the enigmatic Jay Gatsby pursues love, wealth, and identity across the social divide.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
In an elite New England college, a charismatic classics professor lures a group of eccentric students into obsessive study, leading them from intellectual curiosity to corruption, betrayal, and ultimately murder.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A wolf–dog, raised by Native Americans in the Yukon, evolves from fierce pack animal to a survivor in the harsh Gold Rush world of early 20th‑century North America.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
The Bell Jar is the sole novel by Sylvia Plath, a psychologically intense and autobiographical look at a young woman’s decline into mental illness.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A Fine Balance is Rohinton Mistry's critically acclaimed second novel, set in India in the mid-1970s and focusing on four unlikely individuals who come together in a city apartment during a state of emergency.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic expose the brutal reality of American slavery, following the devout slave Tom as he faces injustice and moral dilemmas—an influential work that stirred Northern anti‑slavery sentiment before the Civil War.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Thomas Hardy’s bleak final novel follows Jude Fawley, a stonemason from rural Wessex, whose search for faith, love and independence collides with society’s harsh conventions and leads to tragedy.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Ramsay, decorated WWI veteran of Passchendaele, returns to find memory, myth, and history entwined as his early life subtly shapes those around him.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Emily Evans, hearing a divine call to full‑time Christian service, chooses to serve alone in a pioneer community, opening a new church while navigating her faith and the expectations of marriage.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Elizabeth and her husband Wynn relocate to an isolated RCMP outpost in the Canadian Northwest, facing solitude, tension with local Indigenous women, and the looming mystery of their son Sammy’s disappearance.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A modern university thriller where murder, theft, perjury, and love collide with the scholarly life of a part‑gypsy graduate student.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
In this Canadian novel, Robertson Davies follows the Cornish Foundation as it ambitiously stages an opera, sparking eerie, unexplained events among the cast and crew.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A Caribbean adventure that explores the lust for power and the need for compassion in a world of survival rules.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
A Canadian engineer and botanist settle on a Nile houseboat beneath Abu Simbel, where the temple’s rise‑and‑fall from the Aswan Dam mirrors their own love story, interwoven with the history of the St. Lawrence Seaway and later, Toronto.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
The Birthright follows two generations of Acadian families whose fragile sister bonds are tested by time, tragedy, and the looming Revolution, as they confront revelations that may alter their legacy.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Private investigator Jasmine Sharp is forced to enter the domain of Scotland Yard detective Superintendent Catherine McLeod, where she must confront the secrets entangled in their lives since her mother's murder and the deaths of their fathers.
Similar?
✓ Yes
0
✗ No
0
Some Other Similar Books
The_sources of Irish History by David DicksonThe Manticore by Robert Ludlum
The Wainscotting by William Brodrick
The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
Have a similar book in mind? Let others know!
Please login to submit books!