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Jan 1, 1938 — Jan 1, 1991· 53 yrs

UNITED STATES AUTHOR · FICTION · CHILDREN

John Bellairs

Also known as: Bellairs John, The Estate of John Bellairs LLC (author)

23
BOOKS
4.6
AVG RATING (37)
7
READERS

John Bellairs (1938–1991) was an American novelist working primarily in the Gothic genre. He is best-known for the children's classic The House with a Clock in its Walls 1973) and for the pathbreaking fantasy novel The Face in the Frost (1969). Bellairs held a bachelor's degree from Notre Dame University and a master's in English from the University of Chicago. He combined writing and teaching from 1963 to 1971, including a year at Shimer College that coincided with that school's storied Grotesque Internecine Struggle. After 1971, he took up writing as his full-time work. (from Shimer College Wiki)

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Wikipedia

Lewis Barnavelt fidgeted and wiped his sweaty palms on the seat of the bus that was roaring toward New Zebedee.

— from The House with a Clock in Its Walls, 2000

Most acclaimed

#2

The Face in the Frost

1969

5.0 (4)

The Face in the Frost is a fantasy classic, defying categorization with its richly imaginative story of two separate kingdoms of wizards, stymied by a power that is beyond their control. A tall, skinny misfit of a wizard named Prospero lives in the Southern Kingdom—a patchwork of feuding duchies and small manors, all loosely loyal to one figurehead king. Both he and an improbable adventurer named Roger Bacon look in mirrors to see different times and places, which greatly affects their personalities and mannerisms and leads them into a myriad of situations that are sometimes frightening and often hilarious. Hailed by critics as an extraordinary work, combining the thrills of a horror novel with the inventiveness of fantasy, The Face in the Frost is the debut novel that launched John Bellairs' reputation as one of the most individual voices in young adult fiction. Written with an older audience in view, this book was inspired by Bellairs's reading of the Lord of the Rings series. An unfinished sequel titled The Dolphin Cross can be found in the anthology titled Magic Mirrors.

#1

The House with a Clock in Its Walls

2000

4.2 (17)

When Lewis Barnavelt, an orphan, comes to stay with his uncle Jonathan, he expects to meet an ordinary person. But he is wrong. Uncle Jonathan and his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Zimmermann, are both magicians! Lewis is thrilled. At first, watching magic is enough. Then Lewis experiments with magic himself and unknowingly resurrects the former owner of the house: a woman named Selenna Izard. It seems that Selenna and her husband built a timepiece into the walls—a clock that could obliterate humankind. And only the Barnavelts can stop it!

#3

The Lamp from the Warlock's Tomb

1989

0.0 (0)

Anthony Monday can't understand why his best friend Miss Eells, the town librarian, is so excited about an old Dutch oil lamp, but she buys it anyway. Little do they know that the lamp was stolen from an underground tomb--a frightening place where eerie occult rituals used to be held. When Anthony borrows the lamp for a school science project, he makes a very big mistake: he lights it. Monstrous forces are at once unleashed, forces so demonically powerful that they threaten to take over the entire world--unless Anthony and Miss Eells can stop them! -- From back cover of Bantam-Skylark edition, 1989

Books

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