Davies created the Samuel Marchbanks character whilst editor of the Peterborough Examiner newspaper in the small city of Peterborough, Ontario, northeast of Toronto.

Davies first started work on Samuel Marchbanks' Almanack in 1953, but the manuscript was rejected by his publisher, Clarke Irwin.

Davies filed the rejected manuscript away, not to return to it for a decade.

He resubmitted it for publication in 1966, this time choosing McClelland and Stewart as the prospective publisher.

The book is presented in the form of an almanac, based on the signs of the Zodiac.