Third, Matt Cohen. As well as being a versatile novelist and story writer and, under the name Teddy Jam, a children’s writer, he was a friend of many years — I was his editor in the early ’70s — an inexhaustible fountain of surreal invention, and a raconteur par excellence. Many a jolly evening was made much more jolly by him.

Second, Angela Carter. What an inexhaustible source of strange details and worldly wisdom she was. How instructive, how fundamentally helpful. How like the white-haired fairy godmother you always wished you had

First, Robertson Davies. He loved a good meal and lively chat, much of which could be provided by himself. He had a fine store of amusing anecdotes. One of his early books was called “The Table Talk of Samuel Marchbanks,” Marchbanks being an old codger of an alter ego he invented and perfected long before he was an old codger himself.