John B. Gough was born in South Carolina, but raised in Illinois. After graduating from high school, he moved to Chicago, where he spent the next thirty years of his life on the city's North Side, first as an insurance adjuster, then as a self-employed real estate broker. He began writing during the Great Depression and within a few years had developed his first novel, "The Man Who Came Back." Published by Houghton Mifflin Co
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in 1935, it was later reissued by Berkley Medallion Books. Gough also wrote two other novels during this time: "The Man Who Lived Upstairs" (1936) and "The Secret of the League" (1937). He worked on his second novel for six years before submitting it to Houghton Mifflin, who accepted it for publication after considering it "too good to be true." It was called "My Brother's Keeper" and became one of the most successful novels of the 1940s.
It went through four printings in one year and was made into a feature film starring Spencer Tracy in 1946. The book was translated into a play in Germany in 1947 and a radio play in England in 1948. In 1948 Gough published his third novel, "The Man Next Door," which went through four printings in less than a year.
In 1950 he returned to full-time writing when he signed a contract with Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., London publishers of "My Brother's Keeper," to write three books during the next two years. The first two were published when he turned thirty-six: "A Child's Revenge" (1951) and "A Child's Revenge Revisited" (1952). His third book, "The Boy Who Came Back," was published in 1952 under the pen name John Belknap.
It became one of the bestsellers of that year and has gone through 22 printings since its initial publication by Lippincott Company, Philadelphia. In 1954 Hodder & Stoughton published Gough's fourth novel, "The Boy Who Never Died," which went through three printings in three months despite being used as a textbook at Oxford University for two years due to low sales. In 1954 Gough published his fifth novel, "We Two Are One," which went through four printings after it was used as a textbook at Oxford University for three years due to low sales.
In July 1956 Hodder & Stough
