John Bellairs

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John Bellairs
Born: 17 January 1938
Marshall, Michigan
Died: 8 March 1991
Haverhill, Massachusetts
Occupation: novelist
Nationality: American
Writing period: 1966–1992
Genres: humor, fantasy, horror
Debut works: St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies
Influences: J. R. R. Tolkien
Website: bellairsia.com blog

John Anthony Bellairs (17 January 1938 — 8 March 1991) was an American author, best known for his well-respected fantasy novel, The Face in the Frost, as well as many gothic mystery novels for young adults featuring Lewis Barnavelt, Anthony Monday and Johnny Dixon.

Contents

[edit] Biography

After earning degrees at University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, Bellairs taught English at various midwest and New England colleges for several years before turning full-time to writing in 1971. He maintained a lifelong interest in archaeology, architecture, "kitschy" antiques, bad poetry, traveling to England, history, and Latin. His favorite authors included Charles Dickens, Henry James, C. V. Wedgwood, and Garrett Mattingly, as well as M.R. James, from whose ghost stories he occasionally borrowed elements to work into his own fiction.

His first published work, St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies, was a collection of short stories satirizing the rites and rituals of Second Vatican Council era Catholicism (it is currently out of print). The Pedant and the Shuffly was a short fable detailing the chaotic encounter of the two title characters (it was republished in paperback in 2001).

Bellairs undertook The Face in the Frost while living in England and after reading J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings; in the upshot, it is not much like that book, save for the fact that it shares the idea of a wizard who is palpably human and not a literary stereotype. Bellairs said of his third book: "The Face in the Frost was an attempt to write in the Tolkien manner. I was much taken by The Lord of the Rings and wanted to do a modest work on those lines. In reading the latter book I was struck by the fact that Gandalf was not much of a person — just a good guy. So I gave Prospero, my wizard, most of my phobias and crotchets. It was simply meant as entertainment and any profundity will have to be read in." Writing in 1973, Lin Carter described The Face in the Frost as one of the three best fantasy novels to appear since The Lord of the Rings. Carter stated that Bellairs was planning a sequel to The Face in the Frost at the time.[1]

The House with a Clock in Its Walls (1973), Bellairs's next novel, was originally composed as a contemporary adult fantasy, but at the time there was little market for such a thing. The second publisher to which it was submitted suggested rewriting it as a young readers' book; Bellairs did so, and thus determined the future course of his career. While his following books were all good-to-excellent of kind, his earlier adult work suggests to many that--not for the first or the last time--the world was deprived by economic stringencies of some works of excellence.

Two books, The House with a Clock in its Walls and The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn, were adapted for television in 1979 and 1980, respectively. A number of books have also been released around the world in such languages as German, French, Japanese and Polish, among others.

[edit] Death and afterward

Bellairs died of cardiovascular disease at his home in Haverhill, Massachusetts, in 1991. He was 53 years old.

At the time of his death he left behind two unfinished manuscripts and two one-page synopses for future adventures. Author Brad Strickland was commissioned by the Bellairs estate to complete the two unfinished manuscripts and to write novels based on the two one-page outlines. These would become The Ghost in the Mirror, The Vengeance of the Witch-finder, The Drum, the Doll and the Zombie, and The Doom of the Haunted Opera, respectively. Starting in 1996 with The Hand of the Necromancer, Strickland began writing his own stories based on the established characters. In 1992, a historical marker was placed in front of the Cronin House in Bellairs's hometown of Marshall, noting that the imposing Italianate mansion was the basis for his 1973 book. In 2000, Bellairs was inducted posthumously into the Haverhill Hall of Fame.

Rumors of a full-fledged motion picture adaptation of The House with a Clock in Its Walls, as well as other titles, have been exchanged online for years; to date, there is no official release date set for any movie.

Brad Strickland announced in spring 2005 that, after contract negotiations with the Bellairs estate, new adventures were underway. The first of these new adventures was The House Where Nobody Lived, released on 5 October 2006.

[edit] Illustrators

Edward Gorey provided covers and frontispieces for all but three of Bellairs's children's works, and he continued to provide them for the Strickland novels until his death in 2000. The novel The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge features the last published artwork of Edward Gorey before his death. Artists S.D. Schindler and Bart Goldman have created cover art for books published since 2001.

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] By John Bellairs

Title Year Series
St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies 1966  
The Pedant and the Shuffly 1968  
The Face in the Frost 1969  
The House with a Clock in Its Walls 1973 Lewis Barnavelt
The Figure in the Shadows 1975 Lewis Barnavelt
The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring 1976 Lewis Barnavelt
The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn 1978 Anthony Monday
The Curse of the Blue Figurine 1983 Johnny Dixon
The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt 1983 Johnny Dixon
The Dark Secret of Weatherend 1984 Anthony Monday
The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull 1984 Johnny Dixon
The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost 1985 Johnny Dixon
The Eyes of the Killer Robot 1986 Johnny Dixon
The Lamp From the Warlock's Tomb 1988 Anthony Monday
The Trolley to Yesterday 1989 Johnny Dixon
The Chessmen of Doom 1989 Johnny Dixon
The Secret of the Underground Room 1990 Johnny Dixon
The Mansion in the Mist 1992 Anthony Monday

[edit] Started or outlined by John Bellairs, completed by Brad Strickland

Title Year Series
The Ghost in the Mirror 1993 Lewis Barnavelt
The Vengeance of the Witch-finder 1993 Lewis Barnavelt
The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie 1994 Johnny Dixon
The Doom of the Haunted Opera 1995 Lewis Barnavelt

[edit] By Brad Strickland

Title Year Series
The Hand of the Necromancer 1996 Johnny Dixon
The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder 1997 Johnny Dixon
The Specter From the Magician's Museum 1998 Lewis Barnavelt
The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost 1999 Johnny Dixon
The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge 2000 Lewis Barnavelt
The Tower at the End of the World 2001 Lewis Barnavelt
The Whistle, the Grave, and the Ghost 2003 Lewis Barnavelt
The House Where Nobody Lived 2006 Lewis Barnavelt

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Lin Carter, Imaginary Worlds. Ballantine, 1973. Cites Carter's correspondence with Bellairs.

[edit] External links

[edit] See also



Persondata
NAME Bellairs, John Anthony
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION American novelist
DATE OF BIRTH 17 January 1938
PLACE OF BIRTH Marshall, Michigan
DATE OF DEATH 8 March 1991
PLACE OF DEATH Haverhill, Massachusetts
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