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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 England 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 (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 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''. Ballantine, 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. 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 . 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 under way. 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'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. BIBLIOGRAPHY By John Bellairs Started or outlined by John Bellairs, completed by Brad Strickland By Brad Strickland NOTES EXTERNAL LINKS |
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