Some critics of Robertson Davies' three novels that comprise the Salterton trilogy, "Tempest-Tost" (1951), "Leaven of Malice" (1954), and "A Mixture of Frailties" (1958) complain of their creaky novelistic machinery, suggesting that they merely show an essayist, or journalist, becoming a novelist. These three novels, however, can introduce students to a Davies world that reappears in the Deptford and Cornish trilogies. One reason these early novels might have appeared to be anomalies in twentieth-century fiction is that Davies employs unabashedly old-fashioned techniques. It is made quite clear that he likes a good suspenseful story involving a cast of talkative characters whose idiosyncrasies allow him to express his own attitudes in a satiric way. He brings his experiences both as playwright and essayist to the writing of novels, reveling in dialogue and comic scenes and coming forward in his best Samuel Marchbanks manner to express his opinions for the edification of the gentle reader. Davies pleases his audience because he combines the expected with the unexpected. Davies manipulates the reader to admire artistic genius on stage, in the concert hall, at the writer's desk, and in the painter's studio. He lets the reader see that those characters who are to be most admired are the ones who bring magic to their artistic endeavors, and he stands behind them as the supreme prestidigitator. (MG)