John Bellairs is beloved as a master of Gothic young adult novels and fantasies. His series about the adventures of Lewis Barnavelt and his uncle Jonathan, which includes
The House with a Clock in Its Walls, is a classic. He also wrote a series of novels featuring the character Johnny Dixon. Among the titles in that series are
The Curse of the Blue Figurine;
The Mummy, the Will, and the Crypt; and
The Spell of the Sorcerer's Skull. His stand-alone novel
The Face in the Frost is also regarded as a fantasy classic, and among his earlier works are
St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies and
The Pedant and the Shuffly.
Bellairs was a prolific writer, publishing more than a dozen novels before his untimely death in 1991.