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Madeleine L'Engle
L'Engle in the 1980s
L'Engle in the 1980s
Born Madeleine L'Engle Camp
(1918-11-29)November 29, 1918
New York City, U.S.
Died September 6, 2007(2007-09-06) (aged 88)
Litchfield, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation Writer
Alma mater Smith College
Period 1945–2007
Genre
Notable works A Wrinkle in Time and sequels
Notable awards
Spouse
Hugh Franklin
​
​
(m. 1946; died 1986)​
Children 3 (2 biological and 1 adopted)

Madeleine L'Engle (born November 29, 1918 – died September 6, 2007) was an American writer. She wrote many kinds of books, including fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. She is most famous for her books for young adults, especially A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels. Her stories often showed her Christian faith and her interest in modern science.

Early Life and Childhood

Madeleine L'Engle Camp was born in New York City on November 29, 1918. She was named after her great-grandmother. Her mother was a pianist, and her father, Charles Wadsworth Camp, was a writer. He was a war correspondent and suffered from an illness after World War I.

Madeleine started writing stories when she was just five years old. By age eight, she was keeping a journal. However, school was tough for her. She was a shy and sometimes clumsy child. Some teachers thought she wasn't very smart. Because of this, she often escaped into her own world of books and writing. Her parents traveled a lot, so Madeleine went to many different boarding schools and had many governesses.

At one point, her family moved to a large house in the French Alps, hoping the fresh air would help her father's health. Madeleine went to a boarding school in Switzerland. In 1933, her family moved to Florida to be near her sick grandmother. Madeleine then attended Ashley Hall in South Carolina. Her father passed away in 1936, and Madeleine was not able to say goodbye.

Education, Marriage, and Family Life

Madeleine went to Smith College from 1937 to 1941. After graduating with honors, she moved to New York City. She published her first novels, The Small Rain and Ilsa, before 1942.

In 1942, she met actor Hugh Franklin while they were both in a play. They got married on January 26, 1946. Their first daughter, Josephine, was born in 1947.

In 1952, the family moved to an old farmhouse in Goshen, Connecticut. To help with money, they bought and ran a small general store. Madeleine kept writing during this time. Their son, Bion, was born that same year. Four years later, a seven-year-old girl named Maria, whose parents had passed away, came to live with them. They soon adopted her. Madeleine also directed the choir at her local church.

Becoming a Writer

Madeleine almost gave up writing on her 40th birthday in November 1958. She had received another rejection letter for her work. She felt she wasn't earning enough money from her writing. But she soon realized she couldn't stop. She found herself still working on stories without even trying.

In 1959, her family moved back to New York City so Hugh could act again. Before moving, they took a long camping trip across the country. It was during this trip that Madeleine got the idea for her most famous book, A Wrinkle in Time. She finished the book by 1960. It was rejected by over thirty publishers before it was finally published in 1962.

From 1960 to 1966, Madeleine taught at a school in New York. In 1965, she started volunteering as a librarian at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She later became a writer-in-residence there, spending her winters in New York and summers at her farmhouse.

During the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, Madeleine wrote many books for both children and adults. Four of her adult books were autobiographical memoirs, sharing stories from her own life. One of these, Two-Part Invention (1988), was about her marriage. She finished it after her husband passed away from cancer in 1986.

Writing for Young Readers

After winning the Newbery Medal for A Wrinkle in Time in 1962, Madeleine shared her thoughts on writing for children. She believed that a good children's author needs to remember their own childhood feelings. She said that children can often understand big ideas, even scientific ones, with their imagination. Adults, she felt, sometimes have minds that are "closed to an open book." This is why many writers use fantasy to share important and difficult messages with young readers.

Madeleine's Beliefs

Madeleine L'Engle was a Christian who attended Episcopal churches. She believed that everyone would eventually be saved by God's love. Because of these beliefs, some Christian bookstores refused to sell her books. Her books were also sometimes banned from Christian schools and libraries. At the same time, some non-religious critics thought her work was too religious.

She believed that God's punishment was like a loving parent teaching a lesson. It would only last as long as needed for the lesson to be learned, and the lesson was always about love.

In 1982, Madeleine spoke about how difficult experiences had helped her. She said that being lonely as a child taught her about the "world of the imagination," which helped her write for children. Later, she faced many rejections after her first books were published. This was a "bitter" time, but she learned important lessons that helped her keep writing.

Later Life and Legacy

In 1991, Madeleine was seriously hurt in a car accident, but she recovered well. She even visited Antarctica in 1992. Sadly, her son, Bion, passed away in 1999 at age 47.

In her final years, Madeleine had trouble moving around due to osteoporosis. After a brain hemorrhage in 2002, she stopped teaching and traveling. Some collections of her older, previously unpublished works came out after 2001.

Madeleine L'Engle died peacefully on September 6, 2007, at a nursing facility near her home in Connecticut. She is buried in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan.

In 2018, her granddaughters published a biography about her called Becoming Madeleine. Another book about her spiritual legacy was also published that year.

Madeleine's famous book, A Wrinkle in Time, has been made into a movie twice by Disney. A TV movie came out in 2004. Madeleine said she expected it to be bad, and it was. A new movie version, directed by Ava DuVernay, premiered in 2018.

In 2019, a conference was held in New York City to celebrate 100 years since Madeleine's birth.

Awards and Honors

Madeleine L'Engle received many awards and honors throughout her life. Her books won prizes, and she personally received many special recognitions. Some of these include:

  • Being named an Associate Dame of Justice in the Venerable Order of Saint John (1972).
  • The Smith College Medal for her service (1981).
  • The Regina Medal (1985).
  • The ALAN Award for her great contribution to young adult literature (1987).
  • The Kerlan Award (1991).

In 1985, she gave a speech at the Library of Congress called "Dare to be Creative!" That same year, she became the president of the Authors Guild for two years. She also received more than a dozen honorary degrees from different colleges and universities.

In 1998, she received the Margaret A. Edwards Award from the American Library Association. This award honors a writer for their lasting contribution to young adult literature. Four of her books were specifically mentioned: Meet the Austins, A Wrinkle In Time, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and A Ring of Endless Light. In 2004, she received the National Humanities Medal, but she was too ill to attend the ceremony.

Madeleine L'Engle was added to the New York Writers Hall of Fame in 2011. In 2012, a survey of School Library Journal readers voted A Wrinkle in Time as the best children's novel after Charlotte's Web. In 2013, a crater on Mercury was named after her!

At Smith College, there is a special fund in Madeleine's name. It helps researchers travel to use the college's unique collections of her papers and other materials.

Madeleine L'Engle's Collections

Since 1976, Wheaton College in Illinois has kept a special collection of Madeleine L'Engle's papers and other items, dating back to 1919. This collection includes manuscripts of her published and unpublished works, interviews, photos, and many letters she exchanged with adults and children.

In 2019, a large collection of her family, personal, and literary papers was given to the Sophia Smith Collection of Women's History at Smith College.

Understanding Her Books

Madeleine L'Engle's most famous books are often grouped into two main types: "Chronos" and "Kairos" stories.

  • The Chronos stories are about the Austin family. They are mostly realistic, but sometimes include elements of science fiction.
  • The Kairos stories are about the Murry and O'Keefe families. These can be realistic or more magical. The O'Keefe stories, which feature the next generation of characters, are usually more realistic.

It's important to know that these families don't live in separate worlds. Some characters appear in both types of stories, and they share historical events.

Besides novels and poetry, Madeleine also wrote many non-fiction books. These included her autobiographical Crosswicks Journals and books exploring faith and art. She often wrote about "story as truth," meaning the line between fiction and her own life was sometimes blurry. Real events from her life and family history often appeared in her novels, while her journals sometimes used made-up names.

A common idea in Madeleine's works is that things people call religion, science, and magic are actually just different parts of one big, connected reality.

Main Characters in Her Stories

Main article: Major characters in the works of Madeleine L'Engle

Many of Madeleine L'Engle's novels feature characters who appear again and again, sometimes decades older.

  • The "Kairos" books are about the Murry and O'Keefe families. Meg Murry and Calvin O'Keefe get married and have a daughter, Polyhymnia O'Keefe, who becomes a main character in later books.
  • The "Chronos" books focus on Vicky Austin and her brothers and sisters. Vicky appears as a child and teenager. Her sister Suzy also appears as an adult with her own family in a later novel.
  • Two of Madeleine's early characters, Katherine Forrester and Camilla Dickinson, also reappear as older women in later books.
  • Some characters, like Canon Tallis, Adam Eddington, and Zachary Gray, appear in both the Kairos and Chronos stories, connecting the two worlds.

Works

Novels for Young Adults

Chronos & Kairos series:

Other Young Adult Novels:

  • And Both Were Young (1949), revised (1983) ISBN: 0-440-90229-0
  • The Journey with Jonah (1967) ISBN: 0-374-33927-9
  • The Joys of Love (2008) ISBN: 0-374-33870-1

Novels for Adults

Katherine Forrester Vigneras series:

  1. The Small Rain (1945) ISBN: 0-374-26637-9
  2. A Severed Wasp (1982) ISBN: 0-374-26131-8

Camilla Dickinson series:

  1. Camilla Dickinson (1951), republished as Camilla (1965) ISBN: 0-440-01020-9
  2. A Live Coal in the Sea (1996) ISBN: 0-374-18989-7

Other Novels:

  • Ilsa (1946) ISBN: 9-781504-049443
  • A Winter's Love (1957) ISBN: 0-345-30644-9
  • The Love Letters (1966), revised (2000) ISBN: 0-87788-528-1
  • The Other Side of the Sun (1971) ISBN: 0-87788-615-6
  • Certain Women (1992) ISBN: 0-374-12025-0

Children's Picture Books

  • Dance in the Desert (1969) ISBN: 0-374-41684-2
  • The Glorious Impossible (1990) ISBN: 0-671-68690-9
  • The Other Dog (2001) ISBN: 1-58717-040-X
  • A Book, Too, Can Be a Star (2022), a biography of Madeleine L'Engle for kids

Short Stories

  • The Sphinx at Dawn: Two Stories (1982)
  • The Moment of Tenderness (2020), collection of 18 short stories

Poems

  • The Weather of the Heart: Selected Poems (1978)
  • Wintersong: Christmas Readings (1996, with Luci Shaw) ISBN: 1-57383-332-0
  • The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle (2005) ISBN: 0-87788-086-7

Plays

  • 18 Washington Square South: A Comedy In One Act (1944)

Non-fiction Books

Autobiographies and Memoirs

Crosswicks Journals series:

  1. A Circle of Quiet (1972) ISBN: 0-374-12374-8
  2. The Summer of the Great-grandmother (1974) ISBN: 0-374-27174-7
  3. The Irrational Season (1977) ISBN: 0-374-17733-3
  4. Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage (1988) ISBN: 0-374-28020-7
Books on Religion and Faith

Genesis Trilogy:

  1. And It Was Good: Reflections on Beginnings (1983) ISBN: 0-87788-046-8
  2. A Stone for a Pillow (1986) ISBN: 0-87788-789-6
  3. Sold into Egypt (1989) ISBN: 0-87788-766-7

Other Religion Books:

  • Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (1980) ISBN: 0-87788-918-X
  • The Rock that is Higher: Story as Truth (1993)
  • Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols in Antarctica and Other Spiritual Places (1996) ISBN: 0-87788-631-8
  • Bright Evening Star: Mystery of the Incarnation (1997) ISBN: 0-87788-079-4
  • Miracle on 10th Street: And Other Christmas Writings (1998) ISBN: 0-87788-531-1
Books on Writing
  • Dare To Be Creative!: A Lecture Presented At The Library Of Congress, November 16, 1983 (1984) ISBN: 0-84440-456-X

Movie and TV Adaptations

See also

Kids robot.svg In Spanish: Madeleine L'Engle para niños

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