Quicknation    John Gardner

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(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.

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.

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

Gardner's most popular novels were i, about a brooding, disenchanted policeman who is called upon to engage a madman fluent in classical mythology, and i, 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.

Throughout his adult life Gardner continued to teach writing. He was a favorite at the Breadloaf writers conference and his two books on authorship -- i. His direct and often unflattering (perhaps courageous) judgments of contemporary authors harmed his relationships with many in the publishing industry.

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.

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, i, was published in 2004.

"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.