Robertson Davies’s What’s Bred in the Bone (1985), the second novel in his Cornish Trilogy, explores the life of Francis Cornish, a gifted Ontario-born painter whose biography, like his art, conceals unexpected truths. After Cornish’s death, the Cornish Foundation commissions a biography, but the real story is told by two celestial narrators: the Angel of Biography and Francis’s guiding daimon. Their account traces Francis’s lineage, early encounters with beauty, and artistic awakening, through a troubled childhood, a failed marriage, and a covert career in British espionage. In prewar Bavaria, Francis learns Old Master techniques from art restorer Tancred Saraceni, ultimately producing a Renaissance-style triptych mistaken for an authentic masterpiece. This deception forces him to abandon painting, though he later becomes a patron of the arts. Blending myth, history, and moral inquiry, the novel examines the forces—both earthly and divine—that shape a life. Shortlisted for the 1986 Booker Prize, it is a meditation on destiny, art, and the truths hidden “in the bone.”
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