John Bellairs


John Anthony Bellairs was an American author, best known for his fantasy novel The Face in the Frost and many gothic mystery novels for young adults featuring the characters Lewis Barnavelt, Rose Rita Pottinger, Anthony Monday, and Johnny Dixon.

Life and career

Bellairs was born in Marshall, Michigan, the son of Virginia and Frank Edward Bellairs. After earning degrees at University of Notre Dame and the University of Chicago, Bellairs taught English at various midwestern 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 title story of St. Fidgeta grew out of stories Bellairs made up and shared with friends while living in Chicago. After committing one such story to paper, he sent it to the Chicago-based Catholic magazine the Critic, which published the story in its summer 1965 edition. The following year, the hagiography of St. Fidgeta was supplemented by eleven other humorous stories, including an essay on lesser-known popes of antiquity, a cathedral constructed over the course of centuries, and a spoof letter from a modern-day Xavier Rynne about the escapades at the fictional Third Vatican Council. The book remained out of print for decades until it was rereleased in a 2009 anthology.
The Pedant and the Shuffly, his second book, was a short illustrated fable that detailed the chaotic encounter of the two title characters and logic. It was originally published in 1968 and rereleased in 2001 and 2009.
Bellairs undertook The Face in the Frost while living in Britain and after reading J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, but it is not much like that book, apart from sharing 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. An unfinished sequel titled The Dolphin Cross was included in the 2009 anthology Magic Mirrors, which was published by the New England Science Fiction Association Press.
Bellairs's next novel, The House with a Clock in Its Walls, was originally composed as a contemporary adult fantasy, but at the time there was little market for the sub-genre. 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, as he 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, and the former for film in 2018. A number of books have also been released 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.
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, which was published on October 5, 2006.

Illustrators

provided cover illustrations and frontispieces for all but three of Bellairs' 15 children's works, and continued to provide them for the Strickland novels until his death in 2000. The novel The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge featured Gorey's last published artwork before his death. Artists S. D. Schindler and Bart Goldman have created cover art for the books published since 2001.
The Gorey covers are no longer in print, though some books still contain interior Gorey illustrations.
Marilyn Fitschen provided the covers and illustrations for Bellairs's first three books, "St Fidgeta and Other Parodies", "The Pedant and the Shuffly" and "The Face in the Frost."

Movies

On November 18, 2011, Mythology Entertainment, founded by Brad Fischer, co-president of production at Phoenix Pictures; Laeta Kalogridis; and James Vanderbilt announced that they hired Eric Kripke, creator of Supernatural and Revolution, to write and produce a feature film based on John Bellairs' work through a partnership with John's estate. "Jamie, Laeta and I are thrilled to launch Mythology Entertainment and to be partnering with Eric Kripke and the estate of John Bellairs for our first feature project,” Fischer said.
“As a kid, Eric was inspired by Bellairs’ work and these books have stayed with him through the years…. As a company, we aspire to be a haven for artists and friends who believe in the power of myth and remember that feeling we all got as kids, when the lights went down and the images came up and anything was possible.”

The film adaptation of Bellairs' novel, The House with a Clock in Its Walls, stars Jack Black as Uncle Jonathan, Cate Blanchett as Mrs. Zimmerman, and Owen Vaccaro as Lewis Barnavelt, and was directed by Eli Roth. It was released on September 21, 2018.

Awards

Published books

Novels

Publishers


#TitleAmberArtist HouseBantam Skylark/BDDBarnes & NobleCorgiDell Yearling/BDDDial/PenguinEditions du RocherEditora RecordGallimard JeunesseHarcourt Brace JovanovichHeyneMacmillanMythopoeic PressNESFA PressPuffin/PenguinShueisha Publishing
01St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies
02The Pedant and the Shuffly
03The Face in the Frost
04The House with a Clock in Its Walls
05The Figure in the Shadows
06The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring
07The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn
08The Curse of the Blue Figurine
09The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt
10The Dark Secret of Weatherend
11The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull
12The Revenge of the Wizard's Ghost
13The Eyes of the Killer Robot
14The Lamp from the Warlock's Tomb
15The Trolley to Yesterday
16The Chessmen of Doom
17The Secret of the Underground Room
18The Mansion in the Mist
19The Ghost in the Mirror
20The Vengeance of the Witch-finder
21The Drum, the Doll, and the Zombie
22The Doom of the Haunted Opera
23The Hand of the Necromancer
24The Bell, the Book, and the Spellbinder
25The Specter from the Magician's Museum
26The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost
27The Beast Under the Wizard's Bridge
28The Tower at the End of the World
29The Whistle, the Grave, and the Ghost
30The House Where Nobody Lived
31The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer
32Magic Mirrors
33The Best of John Bellairs
34The Best of John Bellairs 2

Adaptations

Audiobooks

Television