Last updated 2004
The following list offers bibliographic information for articles published in academic journals about John Gardner and his work as well as for books primarily about the life and work of John C. Gardner. Also included is a short list of library special collections. This list is not complete and, with a few exceptions, does not attempt to include interviews and speeches, related magazine and newspaper articles, blurbs, and, most notably, reviews of Gardner’s works (for these Robert Morace’s An Annotated Bibliographic Profile is the definitive guide).
For bibliographic information about works by Gardner himself see the Selected Bibliography of Primary Sources Web page and–especially for a comprehensive bibliography containing first edition/re-publication information and rare items — John Howell’s John Gardner: A Bibliogrpahic Profile. Also, several of the books about Gardner contain selected bibliographies or addendums to Howell’s bibliography.
Library Special Collections
Register of the John Gardner Archive, containing manuscripts, etc., at the Rush Rhees Library, University of Rochester. The archive description, part of a Special Collections page, includes a fascimile of the cover of Gardner’s DuPauw University journal, now published as Lies, Lies, Lies!
Item 28626 (previously Folders 43-47) of the Nicholas Joost Papers (containing correspondence in Box 1) at the Lauinger Library’s Special Collections, Georgetown University.
Item 36221 (previously Folders 50-52) of the Kenneth Aguillard Atchity Collection containing correspondance in Box 4 at the Lauinger Library’s Special Collections, Georgetown University.
Books, Articles, etc.
Ackland, Michael. “Blakean Sources in John Gardner’s Grendel.”Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 23.1 (1981): 57-66.
Allen, Bruce. “Settling for Ithaca: The Fictions of John Gardner.”Sewanee Review 85 (1977): 520-31.
Arnold, Marilyn. “Nickel Mountain: John Gardner’s Testament of Redemption.” Renescence 30 (1976): 59-68.
Baber, Joseph. “John Gardner, Librettist: A Composer’s Notes.” Morace and VanSpankeren 97-105.
—. “John Gardner Pushing Against the Frame: Intrusive Undercutting in the Operas Frankenstein and Rumpelstilskin.” Manuscripts 4 (1984): 272-281.
Bacchilega, Christina. “In the Suicide Mountains: An Invitation to Performance.” New York Folklore 8.1-2 (1982): 35-48.
—. “Parodia dell’iniziazione e destituzione del soggetto in Malcolm e Grendel.” Sigfrido nel nuovo mondo: Studi sulla narrativa d’iniziazione. Ed. and Intro. Cabibbo-Paola. Rome: Goliardica, 1983. n.p.
Baker, Will. “A Personal Memoir.” Manuscripts 4 (1984): 288-93.
Barnum, Carol M. “The Alchemy of John Gardner’s Nickel Mountain.”Ball State University Forum. 28.3 (1987): 54-59.
Barrow, Craig. “On Moral Fiction Writer’s Last Novel: Gardner’sMickelsson’s Ghosts.” Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 26.2 (1985): 49-56.
Beigiebing, Robert J. Toward a New Synthesis: John Fowles, John Gardner, Norman Mailer. Challenging the Literary Canon Ser.. Ann Arbor: U Microfilms International Research P, 1989.
Billy, Ted. “The King’s Indian: Gardner’s Imp of the Poeverse.” Notes on Modern American Literature 5 (1980): Item 2.
Budd, John. “Gardner vs. Barth.” Notes on Contemporary Literature13.1 (1993): 6-7.
Butts, Leonard. “The Circle Complete? Reiteration or Resolution inMickelsson’s Ghosts.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 181-93.
—. “Locking and Unlocking: Nature as Moral Center in John Gardner’sOctober Light.” Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 22.2 (1980): 47-60.
—. The Novels of John Gardner: Making Life Art as a Moral Process. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1988.
—. “The Process of ‘Moral Fiction’: Protagonist as Artist in John Gardner’s Novels.” Mendez-Egle, 13-24.
—. “John Gardner: A True Artist.” Manuscripts 4 (1984): 282-87.
Cameron, Eleanor and Marilyn Apseloff. “Art and Morality.”Festschrift: A Ten Year Retrospective. Ed. Perry Nodelman and Jill May. West Lafeyette, IN: Childrens Lit. Assn., 1983. 28-35.
Casper, Leonard. “Angles of Ambiguous Allegience: The Sunlight Dialogues.” Antigosh Review 68 (Winter 1987): 41-48.
Chauche, Catherine. “Mickelsson et le spectre de l’ideal.” Revue Francais d’Etudes Americaines 12.33 (1987): 377-390.
Chavkin, Allan, ed. Conversations with John Gardner. Jackson: UP of MIssissippi, 1990.
Child, Robert D. “‘Death by Book’: John Gardner’s Critical View of Language as an Interpretive Approach to Grendel.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 113-22.
Clark, C. E. Frazer, Jr. “John Gardner.” Conversations with Writers. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli et al. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1977. 83-103.
Coale, Samuel. “The Design of the Dream in John Gardner’s Fiction.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 45-56.
—. “‘Into the Farther Darkness’: The Manichaean Pastoralism of John Gardner.” Morace and VanSpankeren 15-27.
—. “Marriage in Contemorary American Literature: The Mismatched Marraiges of Manichean Minds.” Thought: A Review of Culture and Idea58: 228 (March 1983): 111-121.
Cowart, David. Arches & Light: The Fiction of John Gardner.Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1983.
—. “The Dying Fall: John Gardner’s October Light.” Twentieth Century Literature 29 (1983): 97-111.
–. “Et in Arcadia Ego: Gardner’s Early Pastoral Novels.” Morace and VanSpankeren 1-14.
—. “The Poetry of John Gardner.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 57-74.
Cummins, Walter. “The Real Monster in Freddy’s Book.” Morace and VanSpankeren 106-13.
Cuomo, Joseph, and Marie Portsat. “An Interview with John Gardner.”A Shout in the Streets 1,2 (1977): 45-63.
Daly, Robert. “John Gardner and the Emancipation of Genres.” Georgia Review 37.2 (1983): 420-28.
DeLuca, Geraldine, and Roni Natov. “Modern Moralities for Children: John Gardner’s Children’s Books.” Morace and VanSpankeren 89-96.
DeSalvo, Louise A. “John Gardner’s Drama of Power: October Light.” Mendez-Egle, 66-79.
Des Pres, Terrence. “Accident and its Scene: Reflections on the Death of John Gardner.” Yale Review 73 (1993): 145-60.
Ekelund, Bo Gustav. In the Pathless Forest: John Gardner’s Literary Project. Doctoral Thesis U. Uppsala, 1995. Uppsala, 1995.
Eller, E. E. “Death and Essence: The Wall in John Gardner’s Grendel.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 123-33.
Ellis, Helen B., and Warren U. Ober. “Grendel and Blake: The Contraries of Existence.” Morace and VanSpankeren 46-61. Reprint of English Studies in Canada 3 (1977): 87-102.
Erickson, Joyce Quiring. “Portrait of a (Bad) Artist as Monster: On Moral Fiction as a Gloss on Grendel.” Literature and Belief 3 (1983): 75-85.
Fawcet, Barry and Elizabeth Jones. “The Twelve Traps in John Gardner’s Grendel.” American Literature 62 (1990): 634-67.
Fedosenok, I. V. “Realizm Provit Modernizma: Esteticheskie i Eticheski Vzgliady Dzhona Gardnere v Knige O Nravstvennoi literature.” Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta 9.6 (1984): 20-26.
Fenlon, Katherine Feeney. “John Gardner’s ‘The Ravages of Spring’ as Re-Creation of ‘The Fall of the House of Usher.'” Studies in Short Fiction 31 (1994): 481-87.
Ferguson, Paul F., et al. “John Gardner: The Art of Fiction 73.” ParisReview 21 (1979): 37-74.
Ficken, Carl. “Structure, Point of View, and Theme in John Gardner’sThe Resurrection.” Mendez-Egle, 25-35.
Fitzpatrick, W. P. “Down and Down I Go: A Note on Shelley’sPrometheus Unbound and Gardner’s Grendel.” Notes on Contemporary Literature 7.1 (1977): 2-5.
—. “John Gardner and the Defense of Fiction.” Midwest Quarterly 20 (1979): 405-15. Reprint of Bulletin of the West Virginia Association of College English Teachers 4.1 (1977): 19-28.
Foeller, Elzbieta. “John Gardner’s Long Short Story ‘The King’s Indian’ as Fabulation” Kwartalnik-Neofilologoczny 28 (1981): 381-85. Expanded in Traditions in Twentieth Century Literature. Ed. M. Sienicka. Poznan: n.p., 1981.
—. “The Mythical Heroes of John Barth and John Gardner.” Kwartalnik Neofilologiczny 27 (1960): 183-97.
Ford, Jeffrey. “John Gardner.” Manuscripts 4 (1984): 261-66.
Foust, R. E. “Monstrous Image: Theory of Fantasy Antagonists.” Genre13 (1980): 441-53.
Fredrickson, Robert S. “Losing Battles against Entropy: The Sunlight Dialogues.” Modern Language Studies 13 (1983): 47-56.
Gardner, Priscilla. “A Conversation with Priscilla Gardner.” Manuscripts4 (1984): 232-41.
Greiner, Donald J. “Sailing Through The King’s Indian with John Gardner and His Friends.” Morace and VanSpankeren 76-88.
Hamilton, Lee T. “John Gardner: A Bibliographic Update.” Mendez-Egle, 113-32.
Harris, Richard C. “Ecclesiastical Wisdom and Nickel Mountain.”Twentieth Century Literature 26 (1980): 424-31.
Henderson, Jeff. “The Avenues of Mundane Salvation: Time and Change in the Fiction of John Gardner.” American Literature 55 (1983): 611-33.
—. John Gardner: A Study of the Short Fiction. Twayne’s Studies in Short Fiction Series 15. Boston: Twayne, 1990.
—. “John Gardner’s Jason and Medeia: The Resurrection of a Genre.”Papers of Language and Literature 22 (1986): 76-95.
—, Leonard C. Butts and Kathryn VanSpanckeren, eds. Thor’s Hammer: Essays on John Gardner. Conway: U of Central Arkansas P, 1985.
—. “John Gardner’s Layered Fiction: The Supernatural and the Paranatural.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 167-80.
Higgins, Joanna. “John.” Manuscripts 4 (1984): 294-315.
Howell, John M. John Gardner: A Bibliographical Profile. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1980.
—. Understanding John Gardner. Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1993.
—. “The Wound and the Albatross: John Gardner’s Apprenticeship” Henderson, Thor’s Hammer 1-16.
Hutman, Norma L. “Even Monsters Have Mothers: A Study of Beowulf and John Gardner’s Grendel.” Mosaic 9.1 (1975): 19-31.
Gardner, John. “Interview with John Gardner.” Mendez Egle, 96-111.
Ivasheva, V. “Poslednii Roman Gardnera.” Literaturnoe Obozrenie 3 March 1985: 102-04.
Iwamoto, Iwao. “John Gardner no Sekai: Taidan to Sakuhin wo Toshite.” Eigo Seinen 120 (1975): 454-55.
Janssens, Uta. “The Artist’s Vision: John Gardner.” Dutch Quarterly Review of Anglo-American Letters 90 (1979): 284-91.
Johnson, Charles. “A Phenomenology of On Moral Fiction.” HendersonThor’s Hammer: 147-56.
Kazin, Alfred. “Moral John Gardner.” Esquire 9 May 1978: 35-36.
Kistler, Suzanne F. “In a Distant Time and in All our Times: Jason and Medeia.” Mendez-Egle, 52-65.
Klinkowitz, Jerome. “John Gardner’s Grendel.” Morace and VanSpankeren 62-67.
Kollmann, Judith J. “Grendel and the Tarot.” Spectrum of the Fantastic: Selected Essays from the Sixth International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts. Ed. Donald Palumbo. New York: Greenwood, 1985. 141-52.
Konner, Mel. “John Gardner.” Manuscripts 4 (1984): 176-89.
Knapp, Peggy A. “Alienated Majesty: Grendel and Its Pretexts.”Centennail Review 32 (1988): 1-18.
Larsen, Elizabeth. “The Creative Act: An Analysis of Systems inGrendel.” Mendez-Egle, 36-51.
Larsen, Eric. “Writing and Nostalgia: Hiding in the Past.” New England Review and Bread Loaf Quarterly 5.4 (1983): 461-77.
Levidova, I. “V raznov optike.” Literaturnoe-Obozrenie 1 (1983): 70-73.
Maelund, Odd Martin. “Forfatterutdanning in Norge: Planer og praksis ved provekursene i Bo: Begynnelsen og slutten?” Norsk Litteraer Arbok (1984): 200-215.
MacCurdy, Carol. “On Moral Fiction: The Embattled John Gardner.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 135-46.
Maier, John. “Mesopotamian Names in The Sunlight Dialogues: Or MAMA Makes it to Batavia, New York.” Literary Onomastics Studies 4 (1977): 33-48.
—. “Signature of the Translateur.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 89-99.
Makino, Arimichi. “‘Bokka’ ni Yoru ‘Toshi’ no Kakoikomi: John Gardner no Baai.” Eigo-Seinen 129 (1983): 70-71.
Mason, Kenneth C. “Of Monsters and Men: Sartrean Existentialism and John Gardner’s Grendel.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 101-11.
McCaffery, Larry. “The Gardner-Gass Debate: Showdown on Main Street.” Literary Review 23 (1979): 134-44.
McWilliams, Dean. John Gardner. Twayne’s United States Author Ser. Boston: Twayne, 1990.
—. “John Gardner’s Moral Ambiguity.” Caliban 29 (1992) 101-08.
Mendez-Egle, Beatrice, ed. John Gardner: True Art, Moral Art. Living Author Series 5. Edinburg, Texas: 1983.
Merrill, Robert. “John Gardner’s Grendel and the Interpretation of Modern Fables.” American Literature: A Journal of Literary History, Criticism, and Bibliography 56.2 (1984): 162-180. (ip or cp?)
Milosh, Joseph E., Jr. “John Gardner’s Grendel: Sources and Analogues.” Contemporary Literature 19 (1978): 48-57.
—. “Reason and Mysticism in Fantasy and Science Fiction.” Young Adult Literature: Background and Criticism. Ed. Millicent Lens and Ramona M. Mahood. Chicago: Amer. Lib. Assoc., 1980.
Minugh, David. “John Gardner Constructs Grendel‘s Universe.” Studies in English Philology, Linguistics and Literature: Presented to Alarik Rynell, 7 March 1978. Ed. Mats Ryden and Lennart A. Bjork. Stockholm Studies in English 46. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1978. 125-141.
Mitcham, Judson and William Richard. “An Interview with John Gardner.” New Orleans Review 8.2 (1981): 125-33.
Morace, Robert A. “Freddy’s Book, Moral Fiction, and Writing as a Mode of Thought.” Modern Fiction Studies 29 (1983): 201-212.
—. Introduction. John Gardner: Critical Perspectives. Morace and VanSpanckeren xiii-xxii.
—. John Gardner: An Annotated Secondary Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1984.
—. “John Gardner and His Reviewers.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 17-32.
—. “The Moral Structure of John Gardner’s ‘The King’s Indian.'”Midwest Quarterly 24 (1983): 388-99.
—. “New Fiction, Popular Fiction, and John Gardner’s Middle/Moral Way.” Morace and VanSpankeren 130-45.
—. “Something Happened.” The Literary Review: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing 28 (1985): 617-33.
—. “The Sunlight Dialogues: A Giant (Paperback) Leap Backwards.”Notes on Contemporary Literature 8.4 (1978): 5-6.
— and Kathryn VanSpanckeren, eds. John Gardner: Critical Perspectives. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1982.
Morris, Gregory L. “A Babylonian in Batavia: Mesopotamian Literature and Lore in The Sunlight Dialogues.” Morace and VanSpankeren 28-45.
—. “The Limits of Borrowing: The Matter of John Gardner’s Fiction.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 33-44.
—. A World of Order and Light: The Fiction of John Gardner. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1984.
Mulryan, John. “John Gardner as Mentor: An Experiment in Teaching Creative Writing.” Delta Epsilon Sigmon Journal 29.1 (1984): 19-22.
Murr, Judy Smith. “John Gardner’s Order and Disorder: Grendel andThe Sunlight Dialogues.” Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 18.2 (1976): 97-108.
Nicholson, Peter. “Two Gaps in Gardner’s Translation of ‘The Debate of Body and Soul.'” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching16.2 (1989) 3,6.
Nordius, Janina. “John Gardner’s Nickel Mountain: A Modern Comedy.”Studia Neophililologica 59 (1987): 217-229.
Nutter, Ronald Grant. A Dream of Peace: Art and Death in the Fiction of John Gardner. Modern American Literature 9. New York: Peter Lang, 1998.
Palmer, R. Barton. “The Problem with John Gardner’s On Moral Fiction.” Renescence 34 (1982): 161-72.
Payne, Alison. “Clown, Monster, Magician: The Purpose of Lunacy in John Gardner’s Fiction.” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 157-66.
Payne, Craig. “The Cycle of the Zodiac in John Gardner’s Grendel.”Mythlore 67 (1991)
—. “The Redemption of Cain in John Gardner’s Grendel.” Mythlore 68 (1992): 12-16.
Perkins, James Ashbrook. Robert Coover and John Gardner: What Can We Do with the Poets?” Notes on Contemporary Literature 6.2 (1976): 2-4.
Petrukhina, M. A. “Problema Nravstvennosti v litterature SShA 70-kh Godov.” Filologicheskie Nauki 3 (1986): 44-49.
Randolf, Robert. “Two Letters from John Gardner.” Modern Fiction Studies 35 (1989): 237-40.
Rapkin, Angela A. “John Gardner’s Freddy’s Book: Techniques of Moral Fiction.” Mendez-Egle, 80-95.
—. “John Gardner’s Novels: Post-Modern Structures in the Service of Moral Fiction.” Mendez-Egle, 1-12.
Riley, Judas. “Welcome to the Endless Mountains.” Manuscripts 4 (1984): 267-69.
Rosenberg, L. M. “John Gardner and the MSS.” Missouri Review 7.1 (1983): 227-31
Rout, Kay Kinsella. “The Ghoul-Haunted Woodland of Southern Illinois: John Gardner’s ‘The Ravages of Spring.'” Studies in Short Fiction 19 (1982): 27-33.
Ruud, Jay. “Gardner’s Grendel and Beowulf: Humanizing the Monster.”Thoth 14.2-3 (1974): 3-17.
Schwartz, Sheila. “A Student’s Memoir.” Manuscripts 4 (1984): 253-60.
Segedy, Michael. “A Critical Look at John Gardner’s Grendel.” Virginia English Bulletin 36.2 (1982): 108-116.
Shorris, Earl. “In Defense of the Children of Cain.” Harper’s 247 (August 1973): 90-92.
Silesky, Barry. John Gardner: Literary Outlaw. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2004.
Simmons, Kenith L. “The Fit Will Survive: Freddy’s Book and Natural Selection.” Massachusetts Studies in English 10.1 (1985): 46-48.
Singular, Stephen. “The Sound and Fury over Fiction.” New York Times Magazine 8 July 1979, Sec. 6: 13+.
Sorrentino, Gilbert. “John Gardner: Rhinestone in the Rough.” Blast 3. Ed. Seamus Cooney et al. Santa Barbara: Black Sparrow, 1984. 340-44.
Spraycar, Rudy S. “Mechanism and Medievalism in John Gardner’sGrendel.” Science Fiction Dialogues. Chicago: Academy Chicago, 1982. 141-52.
Stansbury, Domenic. “John Gardner: The Return Home.” Ploughshares10.2-3 (1984): 95-123.
Strehle, Susan. “John Gardner’s Novels: Affirmation and the Alien.”Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 18.2 (1976): 86-96.
Stromme, Craig J. “The Twelve Chapters of Grendel.” Critique: Studies in Modern Fiction 20.1 (1978): 83-92.
Thornton, Susan. On Broken Glass: Loving and Losing John Gardner.New York: Carroll & Graf, 2000.
Trimbur, John. “Survival and Redemptive Vision in Jason and Medeia.”Morace and VanSpankeren 68-75.
Tuso, Joseph F. “Grendel: Chapter 1: John Gardner’s Perverse Prologue.” College Literature 12 (1985): 184-86.
Van Der Weele, Steve J. “Peter Mickelsson’s Odyssey: From Affiliation to Alienation.” Christianity and Literature 36.2 (1987): 15-26.
Ventura, Sally. “John Gardner’s dialogue with the Book of Job.”Midwest Quarterly 37 (1995) 80-91.
VanSpanckeren, Kathryn. “Magical Prisons: Embedded Structures in the Work of John Gardner.” Morace and VanSpankeren 114-29.
Villar-Raso, Manuel. “John Gardner y la seriedad moral del juego.”Revista Canaria de Estudios Ingleses 9 Nov. 1984: 113-121.
Wegner, Hart L. “‘Dear Hart, Dear Heorrot’: John Gardner as Editor.'” Henderson Thor’s Hammer: 75-88.
—. “A Second Pair of Eyes: The Editor as Teacher.” West Virginia University Philological Papers 36 (1990): 1-8.
Williams, Ned. “John Gardner: Letting Go.” Literature and Belief 2 (1982): 31-36.
Winther, Per. The Art of John Gardner: Instruction and Exploration. Albany: State U of New York P, 1992.
—. “An Interview with John Gardner.” English Studies 62 (1981): 509-24.
Woiwode, Larry. “Mickelsson’s Ghosts: Gardner’s Memorial in Real Time.” Manuscripts 4 (1984): 315-30.
Ziegler, Heide. “Love’s Labours Won: The Erotics of Contemporary Parody.” Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction. Ed. Patrick O’Donnell and Robert Con Davis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989. ___
Zverev, A. “Puteshestviia s Gardnerom.” Literaturnie-Obozrenie 10 (1980): 71-75.