Edward Gorey's Illustrations for John Bellairs' "The House With A Clock In its Walls"

In A Magic Mirror, Darkly

In 2009, the New England Science Fiction Association Press published Magic Mirrors: The High Fantasy and Low Parody of John Bellairs. In the Editor's Preface, Timothy Szczesuil states that there are no hard and fast criteria for NEFSA choosing an author to publish, but that it is often "that one particular NEFSA member loves a particular author enough to be willing to put together a book, and other members agree that there might be enough like-minded people 'out there' who would like to have that book."



In this case the editor's have brought together Bellairs' non-juvenile fiction into an easily available omnibus volume. These works include St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies, The Pedant and the Shuffly, The Face in the Frost, and, perhaps most significantly (certainly for many Bellairs enthusiasts), The Dolphin Cross, the previously unpublished fragment of a sequel to The Face in the Frost. While Fidgeta and Pedant have been hard to find (I was blessed to fortuitously locate both years ago), FF has enjoyed a long popularity, and its readers have had promises of further adventures of the wizard Prospero and his friend Roger Bacon dangled in their faces since at least 1973.



That was the year that Lin Carter announced in Imaginary Worlds (his book on 'epic fantasy') that FF was one of the three best fantasy books to come out since Tolkien published The Lord of the Rings. He also claimed that Bellairs had produced a short story telling how Prospero and Roger Bacon first met, for Carter's planned anthology, Magic Kingdoms. As it turns out, that volume was never made, and whether or not a copy of the story still exists in the enormous but chaotic files that Carter left when he passed away is a moot but tantalizing point. Apparently none existed in Bellairs' own archive when he passed away in 1991.



What is known is that Bellairs never quite abandoned Prospero and the South Kingdom, and according to testimony by both Carter and Bellairs' son Frank (who himself passed away in 1999) he had a file of notes, maps, and outlines for the wizard and his world. Whether this file still exists or went by way of the stove in the backyard where he apparently burned old work from time to time is anybody's guess. What is now known is that he sent a copy of the extant 130 pages of so of The Dolphin Cross to Ellen Kushner, the author responsible for getting the rights for paperback publishing of FF for Ace, and it is thanks to her efforts that we now have a last glimpse of Prospero and his world.



The Dolphin Cross begins some six months after the story of FF, and Prospero is soaking up the joys of spring in the backyard of his eccentrically anachronistic home. Soon he is having bad dreams of marching armies, however, and is caught up in the machinations of the mysterious Othamar, who is apparently trying to unite the little realms of the South Kingdom under his rule. Although it seems obvious he has magical help himself, Othamar is down on wizards and sorcerers, and most of the action of The Dolphin Cross is Prospero's imprisonment and escape, first from exile on a little island and then from an evil magician calling himself the Bishop. Along the way there is plenty of the beautifully observed nature, eccentric characters, and nightmare imagery that made FF the uniquely wonderful experience that it is. If The Dolphin Cross seems a darker work, it is perhaps because it stops in the middle of the tale, where things look bleakest in most stories.



Magic Mirrors is a must have for any Bellairs fan, and not only for The Dolphin Cross. Seeing Marilyn Fitschen's illustrations for FF in the larger, clearer hardback format is something of a revelation, and the Appendix translating Bellairs' Latin quotations (he had degrees from both Notre Dame and the University of Chicago) is very handy. But I also enjoyed the insights and reminiscences of John Bellairs' character revealed in the editor's preface, introduction, and the prefatory note to The Dolphin Cross, especially Bellairs characterization of himself as "a sporadically shy person, and a permanently eccentric one." John Bellairs claimed he gave Prospero his own "phobias and crochets"; Magic Mirrors, as even the cover art by Omar Rayyan seems to suggest,is a loving last look at a great wizard and a great author.

John Bellairs

Many years ago (evidence suggests it was 1979 or so) there came the first time I bought books with my own money. Before then I had to beg Mom long and hard. But I had made $10 doing yard work, and I was ready to step out on my own booking adventures. There was no local bookstore, only the racks in the grocery store, drugstore, and convenience stores. I chose to go to Gibson's, our small local department store, and while Mom combed the clothes aisles I browsed the racks, looking for fantasy in the Tolkienian vein. With my bill and some loose change I was just able to buy three paperback books (wondrous times!), and I chose The Source of Magic by Piers Anthony (a dragon on the cover), The Illearth War by Stephen R. Donaldson (two cool wizardy guys on the front, and a comparison to JRRT), and The Face in the Frost, by John Bellairs (good things by Lin Carter and Ursula K. LeGuin quoted, and again a cool wizardy guy). Now thirty years later I have given up on Anthony after following the Xanth series for twenty or so sequels, wait patiently for Donaldson to grind out the ninth (and last) book of the Thomas Covenant series, and mourn that there is no more genuine Bellairs forthcoming, ever. Thirty years on I am grateful that my instinct and luck led me to buy that first Bellairs.

Strange luck and instinct led me to his other books, as well. I learned about his other books, St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies and The Pedant and the Shuffly, an kept an unhopeful but vigilant eye out for them. I found Fidgeta in a used bookstore near Southwest Texas State University; there was no reason to think it would be there, but I swear when I walked in I got the vibe that I might find it, and there it was in the bargain bin for $1. I found The Pedant and the Shuffly at the little half price bookstore that used to be here in Seguin; I'd been going there for years, but I suddenly got the urge to dig through the sloppy boxes of kid's books rather thoroughly, hoping to maybe find it, and lo and behold it was there. I got The House With A Clock In Its Walls at Yesterday's Warehouse, ordered the first two sequels at our college bookstore, and from then on kept up with Bellair's juveniles until he passed away in 1991.

Brad Strickland took up Bellairs' series then, finishing four books he had begun, and then continuing on with stories of his own, told with the Bellairs characters and in his style. I have kept up with the books, mostly because I am a sucker for sequels and an insufferable know-it-all who has to find out what happens next. Strickland's books are competent, but because he is walking in another man's shoes he cannot make them develop too differently or they don't seem to fit Bellair's style, while simply following the form too slavishly (as even a glance at the style of his titles suggests; see post below) begins to become tired re-hash. A natural growth seems impossible. That said, while I was researching for this post, I found that Strickland has a new book out, The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer, that I'm going to get as soon as I can.

But my research also revealed startling news. Years ago (not quite forty, in fact) Lin Carter revealed that John Bellairs was working on a prequel to The Face in the Frost, dealing with how the two main characters, Prospero and Roger Bacon, first met. It was never finished, however, and languished while Bellairs' kids' books took off. Now there is going to be a book called Magic Mirrors published, this very month, supposedly, that collects (on the occasion of it's 40th anniversary) The Face in the Frost, St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies (re-printed for the first time), The Pedant and the Shuffly, and the only surviving first third of The Dolphin Cross, the long lost prequel! Huzzah!

To find out more about Magic Mirrors (and, indeed, anything more about John Bellairs) go to http://www.bellairsia.com/ .

10 Books A Day: #27

By John Bellairs:
St. Fidgeta and Other Parodies...Macmillan
The Pedant and the Shuffly...Macmillan
The House With A Clock In Its Walls...Dell Yearling
The Figure In The Shadows...Dell Yearling
The Letter, The Witch, And The Ring...Dell Yearling
The Treasure Of Alphaeus Winterborn...Bantam Skylark
The Curse Of The Blue Figurine...Bantam Skylark
The Mummy, The Will, And The Crypt...Bantam Skylark
The Dark Secret Of Weatherend...Bantam Skylark
The Spell Of The Sorcerer's Skull...Bantam Skylark
The Revenge Of The Wizard's Ghost...Bantam Skylark
The Eyes Of The Killer Robot...Bantam Skylark
The Lamp From The Warlock's Tomb...Bantam Skylark
The Trolley To Yesterday...Bantam Skylark
The Chessmen Of Doom...Bantam Skylark
The Secret Of The Underground Room...Puffin
The Mansion In The Mist...Puffin

By John Bellairs, Completed By Brad Strickland:
The Ghost In The Mirror...Puffin
The Vengeance Of The Witch-finder...Puffin
The Drum, The Doll, And The Zombie...Puffin
The Doom Of The Haunted Opera...Puffin

By Brad Strickland:
The Hand Of The Necromancer...Puffin
The Hand Of The Necromancer...Dial
The Bell, The Book, And The Spellbinder...Puffin
The Specter From The Magician's Museum...Puffin
The Wrath Of The Grinning Ghost...Dial
The Beast Under The Wizard's Bridge...Dial
The Tower At The End Of The World...Dial
The Whistle, The Grave, And The Ghost...Dial
The House Where Nobody Lived...Sleuth Dial

Comments to follow soon. Just getting the darn list up was tiring enough.