John Gordon (author)
English writer of supernatural fiction
John (Jack) William Gordon (19 November 1925 – 20 November 2017) was an English writer of young-adult supernatural fiction. He wrote sixteen chlldren's fantasy novels, including The Giant Under the Snow, four short story collections, over fifty short stories, and a teenage memoir.
Overview
Most of Gordon's novels are in the supernatural fantasy and horror genres and feature teenagers in the central roles. The adventures are often set in the Fens, an environment Gordon found mysterious and inspirational in his own adolescence, and contain elements of East Anglian folklore such as the "doom dog". His work has been compared to that of ghost story writer M. R. James. The House on the Brink (1970) is regarded by some appreciators as one of the greatest novels in the Jamesian Tradition.
His short stories have appeared in more than 50 anthologies and other publications and he is included in The Cambridge Guide to Children's Books in English. His work has been translated into many languages, including Russian, Japanese, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Czech, Spanish, Polish and Lithuanian.
Life
John Gordon was born in the industrial North-East (Jarrow, County Durham), the first of five children to Norman (a school teacher) and Margaret Gordon. In 1937, when John was twelve, his father moved the family south to start a new job in Wisbech (Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire).
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q15435114. VIAF identifies the subject as 116162761. The Library of Congress control number is n50035006. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 2017, 1970 and 1937.
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This entry incorporates text from “John Gordon (author)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.