John Bellairs Opened the Doorway for a Generation of Dark Fantasy Readers

The House with a Clock in its Walls
This absolute classic is Bellairs’ most famous work for a reason. Originally conceived as a novel for adults, Bellairs was advised by his editor to rework it for a younger audience. The result is a near perfect dark fantasy thriller that doesn’t treat its audience like kids, but also captures the unique sense of wonder and uncertainty of preadolescence. Augmented by classic illustrations from Edward Gorey, it’s the story of an orphan named Lewis who moves to the sleepy town of New Zebedee, Michigan to live with his eccentric uncle Jonathan—who turns out to be a hapless warlock whose best friend and neighbor is a powerful witch. Jonathan’s titular manor house is riddled with hidden passageways and odd inventions—the sort of touches that spark a young imagination, and make the book seem larger than it is—but the walls also hide an apocalyptic secret, the legacy of the mad wizard who used to reside there. The story pulses with real danger and ominous foreboding; it’s sinister enough to be truly scary, but just gentle enough not to leave its readers scarred (or not too badly, anyway). Lewis gets in over his head trying to use magic he doesn’t quite understand, and then must fight to literally save the world from what he’s unleashed, as Bellairs establishes a style that continues to delight readers nearly 50 years later.

The Curse of the Blue Figurine
If there’s a unifying theme in Bellairs’ best books, it’s that he isn’t afraid to make the dangers his young protagonists face truly matter. In this one, he introduces Johnny Dixon, a lonely, bookish boy whose mother has recently passed and whose father is fighting the war in Korea. The story kicks off when Johnny impulsively takes an odd blue figurine from a local church supposedly haunted by the restless spirit of Father Baart—an idea Johnny rejects as superstition. But he soon finds himself being stalked by a spirit that seems intent on coming back to life, with Johnny as its vessel. Anyone who ever unthinkingly pocketed something cool as a kid, and then been wracked with guilt for the crime, will find the story hits a little too close to home. Bellairs’ brilliance is taking those universal, kid-specific experiences and teasing from them a terrifying story.

The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull
Those Gorey illustrations are ideally suited to this surprisingly dark story, which kicks off when Johnny Dixon and Professor Childermass come across an antique clock with a creepy dollhouse in its base—a dollhouse that comes to life, causing a tiny skull to fall onto the floor. Johnny compulsively pockets the object, which is just the kind of silly mistakes of curiosity kids are always making in these books. Bellairs has a way of balancing absolutely terrifying ideas with the proclivities of his targeted age group, and this one is close to perfection on that score. A phantom Jack O’Lantern in the window? The professor trapped in a mirror, voicelessly miming “Help me”? This is a book even adults shouldn’t read when alone, yet it never loses that sense of innocent adventure.

The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt
More than any other in his bibliography, this book highlights Bellairs’ skill, as he confines himself to a vocabulary and style that an average kid would be able to handle, yet which somehow never feels simplistic. The second of the Johnny Dixon novels finds Johnny in pursuit of the last will and testament of the very rich Mr. Glomus, which has been hidden away, with only a creepy riddle as a clue to its whereabouts. If Johnny can solve the mystery, he can claim the reward—so he ignores Professor Childermass’ warnings and enters the abandoned Glomus mansion. But he’s not alone. Bellairs’ ability to craft real threats without resorting to graphic violence is still impressive.

The Dark Secret of Weatherend
Bellairs’ third major protagonist, Anthony Monday, was introduced in The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn, a straight-ahead mystery novel lacking significant supernatural or magical elements, and seeming to suffer a bit as a result. The author reintroduces those elements here, as Monday and his companion Myra Eells trespass on the dilapidated old Weatherend estate, where weather-obsessed J.K. Borkman erected strange statues to snow and hail and performed mysterious feats of meteorology. A mysterious diary, Borkman’s creepy son, and a plague of supernaturally sinister weather build into a truly intense endgame with huge stakes—but the kids, as always, are up to the task.

The Figure in the Shadows
The sequel to The House with a Clock in its Walls differs significantly in tone tone from the first Lewis Barnavelt story, mainly because this one was conceived as a book for younger readers right from the jump. While it doesn’t match the perfection of that first book, it does expand the universe Bellairs established there, introducing Lewis’ friend Rose Rita and showing that the boy’s life is not filled with endless adventure and magical happenings. It’s that grounded aspect that sets these stories apart. Lewis covets a coin he’s convinced has magical powers he can use to get back at a school bully. He succeeds in getting the coin, and it does indeed seem to have power—but Lewis isn’t certain he’s controlling it, and not the other way around. Kids who have been bullied will connect with the idea of magical revenge—which makes the truth behind the magic that much more more affecting.

The Lamp from the Warlock’s Tomb
This Anthony Monday novel kicks off with Monday and Miss Eells coming into possession of an antique oil lamp, unaware it was once owned by a notorious occultist, and that it’s one part of a trio of artifacts holding in check an evil power. When Monday uses the lamp, it kicks off a series of horrifying events that might be heading toward the literal end of the world. The main characters might be kids, but they have to deal with some seriously dark stuff. Think of this one as a kind of precursor to Stranger Things—it even lines up with that show’s ’80s-era timeline, making it easy to imagine dark connections between Minnesota and Hawkins, Indiana.

The Revenge of the Wizard’s Ghost
Bellairs decision to place his main character into what is essentially a coma could have backfired spectacularly, but instead, it works brilliantly. It’s a direct sequel to The Spell of the Sorcerer’s Skull, which ended with Johnny Dixon releasing Professor Childermass from demonic possession, and explores the consequences of that adventure, as Johnny is possessed in turn by a vengeful, very dead wizard. It’s Professor Childermass and Johnny’s friend Fergie’s turn to set things right, as they race to an abandoned mansion to seek clues to Johnny’s salvation—and must fight for their own lives along the way. The tension of whether or not Johnny can be saved is ramped up when Bellairs puts the other characters in danger as well, making for a thoroughly satisfying Gothic adventure.

The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring
The last of the original—and superior—Lewis Barnavelt adventures (the series was later taken over by another writer) sidelines Lewis almost completely, as Rose Rita and Mrs. Zimmerman set off to investigate the strange happenings in the wake of a mysterious letter from a dying relative. (If Bellairs’ work shows its age at all, it’s in their almost uniformly boy-centric narratives, so it’s nice to see a girl and woman take the spotlight.) Mrs. Zimmerman is a genuine, genuinely powerful witch, but her powers are fading, which means Rose Rita, with no magic of her own, is forced to step up and be not only brave, but powerful in her own way. You can choose to see this as a moving study of that moment all kids have when they first realize adults are fallible, and won’t live forever—and that terrifying notion made very real here.

The Face in the Frost
Often mentioned in the same breath as The Lord of the Rings, name-checked in the original Dungeons and Dragons rulebook, and praised by Ursula K. Le Guin, Bellairs’ early adult fantasy is somewhat forgotten today—and that’s a shame. The story of two wizards teaming up to battle a terrifying evil has everything we’d come to love from the author’s children’s books: truly terrifying villains, supernatural intrigue, a nimble ability to pivot from humor to terror and back again, and a remarkable respect for the intellect of his reader. If you’re a fan of fantasy, you owe it to yourself to check out this great novel. An unfinished sequel was published in the 2009 collection Magic Mirrors, along with other early Bellairs ephemera worth checking out—once you’ve read the rest of his books, that is.