John Bellairs

Infobox Writer
name = John Bellairs
birthdate = birth date|1938|1|17|df=y
birthplace = Marshall, Michigan
deathdate = death date and age|1991|3|8|1938|1|17|df=y
deathplace = Haverhill, Massachusetts
occupation = novelist
nationality = American
period = 1966–1991
genre = humor, fantasy, horror
influences = M. R. James, J. R. R. Tolkien
website = http://www.bellairsia.com

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.

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 the UK, and studying 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; the book remains out of print. "The Pedant and the Shuffly", his second book, was a short, illustrated fable detailing the chaotic encounter of the two title characters; originally published in 1968, it was reissued in paperback in 2001.

Bellairs undertook "The Face in the Frost" while living in Britain 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. [Lin Carter, "Imaginary Worlds". New York: Ballantine/Random House, 1973 (Cites Carter's correspondence with Bellairs).]

"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. Bellairs wound up writing 15 young-adult novels.

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.

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. Bellairs was inducted posthumously into the Haverhill Hall of Fame in 2000.

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 new adventures of the Bellairs characters were under way, following contract negotiations with the Bellairs estate and a two-year absence since his last-published novel. The first of these new adventures was "The House Where Nobody Lived", released on 5 October, 2006.

Illustrators

Edward Gorey provided covers and frontispieces for all but three of Bellairs' fifteen children's works, and he continued to provide them for the nine 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.

Bibliography

By John Bellairs

Notes

External links

* [http://bellairsia.com/ Bellairsia] | [http://bellairsia.blogspot.com/ blog]
* [http://www.krankenhammer.com Bellairsia Discussion forum]
* [http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0212361/ Behind The Books: A Closer Look At John Bellairs]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6459483 Bellairs's grave in Greenwood Cemetery, Haverhill]

ee also

* List of horror fiction authors

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