John Champlin Gardner Jr. (July 21, 1933 – September 14, 1982) was an American novelist, essayist, literary critic, and university professor.

His father was a lay preacher and dairy farmer, and his mother taught third grade at a small school in a nearby village.

Gardner, who was driving the tractor during the fatal accident, carried guilt for his brother's death throughout his life, suffering nightmares and flashbacks.

In a review in the October 1977 issue of Speculum, Sumner J. Ferris pointed to several passages that were allegedly lifted either in whole or in part from work by other authors without proper citation.

[8] Gardner married Joan Louise Patterson on June 6, 1953; the marriage, which produced children, ended in divorce in 1980.

[2] Gardner died in a motorcycle accident about two miles from his home in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, on September 14, 1982.

[9][10] The crash was four days before his planned marriage to Susan Thornton[11]: 269  He was buried next to his brother Gilbert in Batavia's Grandview Cemetery.