Fifth Business is narrated by Dunstable ( later Dunstan ) Ramsay, a male schoolteacher who grows up in Deptford, a fictional town in Southwestern Ontario, Canada.

It sheds new light on many of the characters introduced in Fifth Business, including Dunstan Ramsay, who happens to be in Switzerland recuperating from a heart attack.

Dunstan Ramsay is again in attendance, and more insight is gained into the characters of Fifth Business.

Dunstan Ramsay is the narrator of both " Fifth Business " and " World of Wonders " ( although in " World of Wonders " he is not the main character of the plot ).

In the final scene of the novel where David Staunton is celebrating Christmas with Lizelloti Fitziputli, Magnus Eisengrim, and Dunstan Ramsay he is given a gingerbread bear.

* In The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies, the scholar Dunstan Ramsay and the stage magician Paul Dempster a. k. a. Magnus Eisengrim end up as the " permanent guests " and lovers of the eccentric Swiss millionaire Lieselotte Naegeli – the three of them occasionally sharing an especially large bed, though " most often in order to have a breakfast in bed or take an important decision " rather than for sex.

It is the first installment of the Deptford Trilogy and is a story of the life of the narrator, Dunstan Ramsay.

1. The story of Dunstan ( then called Dunstable ) Ramsay ’ s life begins in 1908 when Ramsay is 10 years old.

She intends to marry him, but when Ramsay refuses, she confers upon him his new name, Dunstan, after the saint who fought off the temptations of the Devil.

For Dunstan Ramsay, religion and morality are immediate certainties in life, and the events of the novel show how moral lapses have a way of ‘ snowballing ’ and coming back to haunt one.

* Dunstan ( Dunstable ) Ramsay — The main focus and narrator of the novel, which takes the form of a letter to the headmaster of Colborne College, from which Ramsay has recently retired.

* Mary Dempster — Ten years older than the narrator, Dunstan Ramsay, she plays a pivotal role in his life where she assumes saint-like proportions despite being held in an insane asylum.

Ten years younger than Dunstan Ramsay, he outshines Ramsay at hand magic and later on, disappears with a travelling circus.

* Leola Staunton — Ravishing wife of Boy Staunton and first love of Dunstan Ramsay.

* Dunstan Ramsay — The narrator of the novel Fifth Business.

* Leola Staunton — David Staunton's mother and the ravishing wife of Boy Staunton and first love of Dunstan Ramsay.

Also present during the story are Eisengrim's friends Dunstan Ramsay and Liesl, who both appear in the earlier instalments of the Deptford Trilogy.

* Dunstan Ramsay — The narrator and good friend of both Eisengrim and Liesl.

It is also connected to earlier novels ; when Cornish is at school in Toronto, one of his teachers is Dunstan Ramsay from the Deptford Trilogy.

His was a full life, and we follow him through his childhood as a wealthy and precocious misfit in a small Ontario town, his education in Toronto ( in which we meet Dunstan Ramsay from the Deptford Trilogy ) and Oxford, his unusual apprenticeship as a restorer and painter in Nazi Germany, his wartime experiences in England, and his later career as a collector and a patron of the arts in Toronto.

He writes to prove to the headmaster that he has in fact led a rich and full life, in his own way, which Dunstan describes as being ‘ cast by Fate and my own character for the vital though never glorious role of Fifth Business !” ( 9 ).

Liesl suggests that Dunstan has “ never led a real life ,” and that his role in life is that of “ Fifth Business .” Dunstan then makes love to Liesl, and despite her unattractive appearance, he calls it the most healing experience of his life.

* In Robertson Davies's novel Fifth Business, when Dunstan buys an expensive silk shirt at a cost beyond his means.

King Edgar and his Archbishop of Canterbury Dunstan instituted a major reform of cathedrals at a synod at Winchester in 970, where it was agreed that all bishops should seek to establish monasticism in their cathedrals following the Benedictine rule, with the bishop as abbot.

Dunstan is surprised to find out that Percy Boyd Staunton is a major with a D. S. O., and very surprised when Percy announces that he and Leola are to be married.

Lake Dunstan provides irrigation for nearby stone fruit orchards and vineyards, and is a major recreational asset, with facilities for boating waterskiing, fishing, parapenting, and rowing.

When the succession became an issue late in Edgar's reign, Æthelwold supported the claim of Æthelred, the son of his major patron, Ælfthryth, whereas Dunstan and Oswald appear to have supported Edgar's son by an earlier wife, Edward the Martyr, who succeeded to the throne.

* Tristran Thorn: The book's main character ( renamed " Tristan " in the movie adaptation ), a half-Faerie creature raised by his father Dunstan Thorn and stepmother Daisy, who he believes to be his mother.

She joined the soap in 1994, portraying the character Eunice Dunstan until her own ( O ' Hara's ) death in 2007.

Davies and Dunstan here are at pains to illustrate to us just how fluid the concept of historical fact really is, and that it is not so distinct from the suppositions of mythic thinking.

Dunstan is treated to a hero ’ s welcome when he returns to Deptford, and a parade is thrown in his and the other war-veterans ’ honour.

Dunstan takes charge of his now emptied household and then acquaints himself with the developments of Deptford over the last four years.

The section ends with Dunstan leaving Deptford in the flesh, though he muses that he ' never wholly left it in the spirit ' ( 100 ).

Dunstan returns to Deptford one last time to gather information on the whereabouts of the insane Mary Dempster.

Dunstan tells Paul what really happened to his mother, years ago in Deptford: the snowball that Boy threw had a rock inside it.

But she is the only member of Deptford society that Dunstan views as truly ‘ religious ’ in her attitude because she lives according to a light that arises from within ( which he contrasts with her husband ’ s ‘ deeply religious ’ attitude, which ‘ meant that he imposed religion as he understood it on everything he knew or encountered ’ ( 46 )).

He was baptised by Dunstan, and a story was told at Glastonbury Abbey that as the infant was baptised, his hand made a motion much like that an archbishop makes when blessing.

That night, Dunstan meets Una in the woods and makes love to her.

Erik Erikson's stages of psychosocial development can also be seen in the choices Boy makes vs. the choices Dunstan makes ( e. g. Boy chooses intimacy while Dunstan chooses isolation ).

* William Dunstan, VC, photo, brief details

The proven origins are that in the 960s or early 970s, Saint Dunstan, assisted by King Edgar, installed a community of Benedictine monks here.

It was here that St Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury met the Witenagemot in order to justify his controversial Church reforms, which involved the secular priests being replaced by Benedictine monks and the influence of landowners over churches on their lands being taken away.

The church here was dedicated to St Dunstan.