Lewis Barnavelt

Lewis Barnavelt is a fictional character who appears in a series of children's gothic horror novels by John Bellairs and Brad Strickland. In each book, Lewis and his group of friends face and overcome various evil forces usually bent on ending the world.

In 1948, Lewis' parents are killed in a sudden car accident, and Lewis moves to the fictional town of New Zebedee, Michigan, to live at 100 High Street with his uncle, Jonathan Barnavelt. Lewis soon learns the truth about his uncle, their neighbor Florence Zimmermann (a kindly witch) and their house, that Jonathan is a wizard and the house used to belong to a warlock, Isaac Izard and his wife Selenna. After Lewis unwittingly resurrects Selenna in an attempt to impress his friend Tarby (an act which drives the other boy away), Lewis helps to locate the clock that Isaac hid within the wall of the house and destroys it, sending the evil witch back to the grave permanently. After making friends with Rose Rita Pottinger, Lewis continues his adventures over the next several years.

At the start of the series, Lewis is a shy, overweight ten-year-old boy who enjoys reading. He is at one point described by Rose Rita as a worrywart, albeit one who displays true courage in genuinely dangerous situations. Though often the target of bullies, Lewis has been known to stand up for himself at times, either with the aid of outside forces (such as Rose Rita's presence or the amulet of Simon Moss) or later with his own courage. He has also been known to cause some of their supernatural problems, albeit accidentally, but more often than not will also be the one to help set things right.

In "The House With a Clock in Its Walls", it is said that when Lewis grows up, he becomes an astronomer working at Mount Palomar, and will discover that the magic egg he received that first Christmas is capable of showing him scenes on other planets.

Sources

*"The House with a Clock in Its Walls" (1972)
*"The Figure in the Shadows" (1975)
*"The Letter, The Witch, and The Ring" (1976)
*"The Ghost in the Mirror" (1993)
*"The Vengeance of the Witch-Finder" (1993)
*"The Doom of the Haunted Opera" (1995)
*"The Specter From The Magician's Museum" (1998)
*"The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge" (2000)
*"The Tower at the End of the World" (2001)
*"The House Where Nobody Lived" (2006)
*"The Sign of the Sinister Sorceror" (2008)

External links

* [http://www.bellairsia.com/the_work/barnavelt.html Discussion of the series at www.bellairsia.com]