Edward Gorey Artwork

Kevin McDermott of Gotham Book Mart in New York City passes along word that original Edward Gorey artwork for three Brad Strickland novels are for sale via ABEbooks.com. The titles are The Bell, the Book and the Spellbinder; The Wrath of the Grinning Ghost; and The Hand of the Necromancer. They'd make great Christmas presents for your favorite Bellairs-fan this holiday season.

Book Alert en français

It’s been a busy time in France for the books of John Bellairs (and Brad Strickland): La Tour de la fin du monde, the ninth book in the Kévin et les magicians series, was released this past June. In Johnny Dixon news, La Vengeance du fantôme was published in November and Les yeux du robot tueur is scheduled for release in February 2006.

Gorey Art for Sale

Up for grabs at ebay this week are two pieces of original Edward Gorey art. First, two interior illustrations from The Trolley to Yesterday (1989) on one piece of paper: the hand and sword pointing at a lit candle (page 120) and the mysterious tabergan (page 107). The second piece paper contains the ink drawing of the rebus clue from The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull (1984), the capital letter "L" covered with leafy vines (page 52). The seller notes both pieces were originally purchased at the Gotham Book Mart in Manhattan. If you've got the money...good luck!

What's Gorey's Story?

Elizabeth Tamny writes in the Chicago Reader of the formative years of Edward Gorey:

Time Capsule: 1985

November, 1985 - A tip of the hat (so it can suck your scalp dry) to Brother Tentacles! Twenty years ago this November we learned just how sinister the Windrow clan truly was. John Bellairs’s fourth adventure in the Johnny Dixon series introduced us to, not only the malevolent Zebulon, but also his unforgettable familiar - the short, hunched figure with tentacles that roams the Windrow estate in New York. The Revenge of the Wizard’s Ghost continued the Windrow saga, as started the year before in The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull, making for a delightful one-two punch from some of the author’s best-remembered villains.

Book Alert: The Best of John Bellairs, Vol. 2

Barnes and Noble have published a new hardcover anthology of the first three Johnny Dixon novels.

26th Annual Christmas Candlelight Walk

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas: five of Marshall, Michigan’s historic homes will open their doors to visitors during the upcoming Holiday Season. Participants will walk with a guide from home to home in a group of about 30 people. There are four start times to choose from, and you will receive final details prior to the tour.

• When: December 10, 11, 2005
• Time:
• Early Tour 4:30 pm
• Late Tour 6:45 pm
• Links: Marshall Historical Society Marshall Chamber of Commerce

Someone's In My Fruit Cellar!

After watching the horror film The Evil Dead (1981) on someone's movie channel we went online to the trivia section at IMDb and found this tidbit:

The cabin did not actually have a cellar. Most of the cellar scenes were filmed in the stone cellar of a farmhouse owned by producer Robert G. Tapert’s family in Marshall, Michigan. The last room of the cellar was actually Raimi’s garage. The hanging gourds and bones are a tribute to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974). For the scene where the students descend into the cellar, a hole was cut into the floor, a shallow hole was dug, and a ladder was placed into the pit.

Nice. Anyone want to add anything to the story?

Go Bellairs! Quote Chaucer!

On the dust jacket of the original Harcourt Brace Jovanovich edition of The Treasure of Alpheus Winterborn you’ll find this interesting bit of trivia bout John:

While an undergraduate at Notre Dame University, John Bellairs startled a national television audience by quoting Middle English on the College Bowl program. He went on to teach English at several colleges and to travel widely. 

Treasure Castaways

Is there such a thing as an Art Kassul Fan Club?

Time Capsule: September 30, 1955

September, 30 1955: Back to college we go as television and music star Eddie Fisher drops in on the student body at Notre Dame, broadcasting his NBC program, Coke Time, live from the pep rally at the old field house. Along hand in the production were the Notre Dame Band and Glee Club.

After the program, Fisher and wife Debbie Reynolds mingled with students; both were in attendance at the football game against Indiana the next day.

We've learned John was not the BMOC at this point so we find it doubtful he was in attendance at the pep rally.

Memoriam: Helen Cresswell

Author Helen Cresswell died Sept. 26 of cancer at her home in England. Cresswell is best remembered for his books staring Lizzie Dripping, the girl with a witch as a best friend, and The Bagthorpe Saga, the tales of inept British eccentrics, both later adapted for television by the BBC. "I do not particularly believe in what most people call reality. I only really believe in truth of the imagination," she said.

BBC: Helen Cresswell's literary legacy
Links: FantasticFiction

Fidgety Feet

Digging through the trenches recently we stumbled upon an online record store where one could purchase a slew of unfamiliar albums from almost anywhere across the world (mainly Poland, the Czech Republic, the eastern half of West Germany and so on). One particular record caught our eye: a 1988 album by the USSR-based Nevskaya Vosmyorka Jazz Band. The album is entitled Fidgeta.

Remembering Roommate Ronald Cardwell

Fifty years ago this fall John Bellairs began life as a college undergraduate at the University of Notre Dame. While there are the usual number of firsts anyone undergoes transitioning from high school to college, one first of Bellairs's was this semester he had a roommate in Zahm Hall. Actually, in four years of college at Notre Dame, Ronald Cardwell would be Bellairs's only room mate.

Whatever happened to Cardwell is uncertain but another Zahm resident - Bellairs's life-long friend Alfred Myers - was nice enough to recall their brief encounter:

Who Is Chubby Lewis?

That's the question we were once asked and we didn't have a good answer. Why are the Lewis Barnavelt books sometimes referred to as the "Chubby Lewis" series?