John Gardner

John (Champlin) Gardner (1933-1982) was born in Batavia, a small town near Rochester, New York State. His father was a farmer and his mother an English teacher. He studied at DePauw University from 1951, graduated from Washington University, St Louis, in 1955 and received a PhD in classical and medieval literature from Iowa State University in 1958. From 1958 he taught at Oberlin College, Chico State College, California, San Francisco State College and Southern Illinois University. From 1978 he was head of the creative writing course at the State University of New York, Binghampton. As well as novels like The Wreckage of Agathon, The Sunlight Dialogues, Freddy's Book and Micklesson's Ghosts, he published modern English versions of medieval poetry and scholarly works on medieval literature. He died in a motor cycle accident.