John Gardner

:This article concerns the American literary novelist John C. Gardner. For other men with this name, see John Gardner (disambiguation).

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John Champlin Gardner (July 21, 1933 – September 14, 1982) was an American novelist and teacher. He was born in 1933 in Batavia, New York. He was a popular and controversial figure until his death, while riding a motorcycle, in 1982.

Related Topics:
July 21 - 1933 - September 14 - 1982 - Batavia, New York

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Gardner's father was a lay-preacher and dairy farmer and his mother was an English teacher at a local school. As a child, Gardner attended public school and worked on his father's farm, where he accidentally killed his brother in an accident with a cultipacker.

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Gardner first attended school at DePauw University, however he received his undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis in 1955. He received his master's degree from the University of Iowa.

Related Topics:
DePauw University - Washington University in St. Louis - 1955

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Gardner's most popular novels were The Sunlight Dialogues, about a brooding, disenchanted policeman who is called upon to engage a madman fluent in classical mythology, and Grendel, a retelling of the Beowulf legend from the monster's point of view. Both books feature brutish figures struggling for integrity and understanding. Gardner was famously obsessive with his work and has a reputation for advanced craft, smooth rhythms and careful attention to the continuity of the fictive dream.

Related Topics:
The Sunlight Dialogues - Grendel - Beowulf

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Throughout his adult life Gardner continued to teach writing. He was a favorite at the Breadloaf writers conference and his two books on authorship -- The Art of Fiction and On Becoming a Novelist -- are considered classics. However, the conclusive and didactic style was not well received in his book of criticism called On Moral Fiction. His direct and often unflattering (perhaps courageous) judgments of contemporary authors harmed his relationships with many in the publishing industry.

Related Topics:
Breadloaf - The Art of Fiction - On Becoming a Novelist - On Moral Fiction

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In 1977, Gardner published "The Life and Times of Chaucer." However, in a review in the October 1977 edition of the scholastic journal Speculum, Sumner J. Ferris pointed to several passages in the text that either in whole or in part were lifted directly from works by other authors, without proper citation. Ferris lightly suggested that Gardner published before he was ready, but Newsweek magazine and other mainstream media outlets were quick to simply label it plagiarism.

Related Topics:
The Life and Times of Chaucer - Newsweek - Plagiarism

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John Gardner was married twice, first to Joan Louise Patterson, and then to the poet Elizabeth Rosenberg. He died in a motorcycle accident just days before a scheduled third wedding. A book by Susan Thornton detailing her relationship with Gardner, ', was published in 2004.

Related Topics:
Elizabeth Rosenberg - Susan Thornton

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"On Writers and Writing" contains John Gardner's essays and reviews, which was published posthumously in 1994. The book's introduction by Charles Johnson, his former student and friend, is also of interest to the general readership. This book was edited by Stewart O'Nan and published by Addison-Wesley Publishing Company.

Related Topics:
Charles Johnson - Stewart O'Nan - Addison-Wesley Publishing Company

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