John Bellairs — the Gothic children's novelist Notre Dame formed

1938–1991 · NOTRE DAME, CLASS OF 1959

The tie. John Bellairs was born in Marshall, Michigan, on 17 January 1938. His South Bend tie is formation, printed exactly: he took his bachelor's degree in English at the University of Notre Dame in 1959, magna cum laude, wrote a humor column for the student Scholastic, and played on the university's College Bowl team of that year; his master's degree followed at the University of Chicago in 1960. The school stands across the river at Notre Dame, and its alumni record claims him as it claims Sparks below — the city prints the formation and nothing beyond it.

The books. His first three books were adult works — The Face in the Frost (1969) the best remembered, a comic fantasy still in print — and the turn to children's Gothic made the name. The House with a Clock in Its Walls (Dial, 1973), illustrated by Edward Gorey, was named a New York Times Outstanding Book of 1973; its boy hero, Lewis Barnavelt, returned in two more books in Bellairs's lifetime (The Figure in the Shadows, 1975, and The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring, 1976). Fifteen Gothic mystery novels in all stand to his name across three series — Lewis Barnavelt's three, Johnny Dixon's eight, Anthony Monday's four — published principally by Dial and priced for the school-library market that made them standards. He died at Haverhill, Massachusetts, on 8 March 1991; his estate engaged Brad Strickland to complete the four books left unfinished. The House with a Clock in Its Walls reached the screen in 2018, a generation after his death. A filmed life of the mind from the Notre Dame formation stands beside it in this section's Sparks entry — two alumni, two children's-and-young-readers' franchises, one school.

Sources:

1. University of Notre Dame Magazine (spring 2019) — the 1959 degree, magna cum laude, the Scholastic humor column, the College Bowl team, the Chicago master's of 1960, the first three books for adults, and the three series' counts (Lewis in three books, Johnny Dixon in eight, Anthony Monday in four).
2. Library of Michigan catalog — The House with a Clock in Its Walls (New York: Dial Press, 1973), 179 pages, and The Face in the Frost (1969); the author's death at Haverhill, Massachusetts, 8 March 1991.
3. Contemporary Authors writings list (Gale) — the Dial list in order: The House with a Clock in Its Walls (1973), The Figure in the Shadows (1975), The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring (1976).