Odds and Ends from the Haunted Opera

We’ve been going through our archives of late – trying to make sense of a decade of information – and found a file of notes we took from the old Compleat Bellairs forum provided by none-other-than Brad Strickland. Brad was known to hop on once in a while and answer questions from readers and fans about nearly every aspect of writing and publishing and the like. Apparently at one time (prior to the site's demise c. 2003) the topic was The Doom of the Haunted Opera (1995) and Brad offered up some interesting tidbits.

Driving Mister Bellairs

We're going back through the archives and sharing some thoughts about John and his work that have crossed our path over the years.

Goreyana: The Hand of the Necromancer

Notes from Goreyana about The Hand of the Necromancer:

Who's Who: Vaughn Monroe

Johnny Dixon comes home from a movie and listens to the radio, which is tuned into Camel Caravan, “a musical program that did the hit tunes of the week” and featured Vaughn Monroe and other singers Johnny liked [The Curse of the Blue Figurine; 56].

Twenty Years, And Yet I Am Remembered

Arvid Nelson is a comic book writer who lives in Northampton, Massachusetts and pays tribute to John on the twentieth anniversary of his death, on March 8:

Time Capsule: 1991

From the March 9, 1991 edition of the Haverhill Gazette:

Call Again, He Is Made Of Stone

A contributor to our forum named Dan wrote to us last year to say he was making his way through The Chessmen of Doom for the first time in over a decade. In the early chapters of the novel something “tugged at [his] memory” when he read the description of Peregrine “Perry” Childermass’ tomb:

The massive bronze doors of the tomb were flanked by two Grecian columns, and the Childermass name was chiseled on the cornice. A few feet from the entrance stood a white marble statue of a bearded man in old-fashioned formal dress. He held a top hat and gloves in one hand, and with his other hand he pointed at the tomb [The Chessmen of Doom; 16].