In a 1990 article Bellairs said that "out of boredom" during his time at Emmanuel College he began piecing together his next work, originally perceived as a second contemporary adult fantasy. Originally "350 pages and the plot a real mess, I sent it around to three or four publishers until it landed with Dial Press. The editor [Phyllis Fogelman] there was herself a children's book writer, and she liked it but wanted it shorter. So I wrote a whole new book. Learning to write for children instead of grown-ups [is what took so long]. And it was something I wrote at night. But I realized it was what I wanted to do and what I was good at."
After multiple revisions over the next five years, and originally focusing on the elderly uncle rather than the child, the end result was his first young-adult novel, The House with a Clock in its Walls (1973), featuring the first of his three young protagonists, Lewis Barnavelt of New Zebedee, Michigan - a small community not unlike his hometown of Marshall.
Jean Van Leeuwen, herself at Dial at the time, says she found the manuscript "in the 'slush pile' of unsolicited manuscripts. I was impressed by its wonderful combination of humor, obscure intellectual references, the supernatural, and cozy, down-to-earth milk and cookies. I remember a lot of correspondence with John, but only one or two actual face-to-face meetings. My chief memory of these meetings was that he brought me delicious chocolate chip cookies, made by his wife, Priscilla. I don't recall ever talking to him about how he came to write The House with a Clock in its Walls, or how much of his writing was autobiographical."
Lewis is orphaned and sent to live with his eccentric Uncle Jonathan and soon the two find themselves up against recently raised from the dead wizards bent on destroying the world with an enchanted timepiece. As with Bellairs' previous work, the tale is not totally horrific: the motherly next door neighbor, Mrs. Zimmermann, herself a witch, adds many a comedic effect in her interactions with Uncle Jonathan. As much magical items and practices are discussed, the story keenly reproduces the sights and sounds of childhood, specifically that of the author's: going to Catholic services and saying prayers in Latin as an alter boy, playing with tin soldiers, being a bookworm and discovering books that smell like Old Spice talcum powder, being a loner and without many friends, and other memories - or things he would have liked to happen.
The supernatural and highly imaginative tale struck a nerve with readers and reviewers alike. The New York Times Book Review said that Bellairs touched "both the intellect and the feelings. He has dusted off the paraphernalia of ancient magic and made us newly aware of the differences between good and evil." Natalie Babbitt, writing in the New York Times Book Review, noted there are "a great many good ingredients in this occult tale," and that "Mr. Bellairs's imagination, and his prose too, are remarkably free of cliché." She added: "The freshness of the writing is very appealing and the horror sections are sufficiently chilling to last long after the story is over." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly was also positive, stating that "for devotees of the genre, here's the genuine article, a ghost story guaranteed to raise hackles."
This was also Bellairs' first collaboration with popular illustrator Edward Gorey, whose black-and-white illustrations beautifully set the forbidding mood and are as memorable as the story itself. As an aside, even though the Bellairs-Gorey association last for twelve books across eighteen years and they both resided in Massachusetts, we’re told the two never met.
Just an important a character was the house itself, a bizarre building that served as Lewis's protected sanctuary full of secret passages, stained glass windows and other surprises. Edward Recchia's article, "You Can Take the Boy out of Michigan, but…" notes that growing up Marshall, Bellairs often visited relatives at their home "just opposite the Cronin House, at 407 North Madison, a foreboding Italianate structure whose mansard-roofed tower rises sixty feet into the air-the highest point in all of Marshall. Although Bellairs never set foot in the house, it must, like the rest of his home-town setting, have had a profound effect on his imaginative powers." The century-old house still stands in Marshall and has become a popular attraction for Lewis fans.
Two sequels followed, each pounded out on the author's Underwood manual typewriter: first, The Figure in the Shadows (1975) continues the Barnavelt saga, as Lewis and his new friend, Rose Rita Pottinger, accidentally summon a spirit using an enchanted coin that gradually takes possession of an unsuspecting Lewis. Rose Rita is given a story mostly to her own in The Letter, the Witch, and the Ring (1976) when she and Mrs. Zimmermann take a seemingly innocent vacation that turns frightful when Zimmermann runs into an old nemesis.
While popular characters with fans, Bellairs put Lewis and Rose Rita into semi-retirement, picking up the series shortly before his death.
