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Madeleine L'Engle (born November 29, 1918) is an American writer best known for her children's books, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters. Her works reflect her strong interest in modern science; mitochondrial DNA, for instance, is featured prominently in A Wind in the Door, tesseracts in A Wrinkle in Time, organ regeneration in Arm of the Starfish and so forth.
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Biography
Madeleine L'Engle Camp was born in New York City, and named after her great-grandmother, Madeleine L'Engle, otherwise known as Mado. Her mother, a pianist, was also named Madeleine. Her father, Charles Wadsworth Camp, was a writer and critic, and a foreign correspondent whose lungs were damaged by exposure to mustard gas during World War I. She wrote her first story at the age of five, and started keeping a journal at the age of eight. These early literary attempts did not translate into success at the New York City private school where she was enrolled. A shy, clumsy child, she was branded as stupid by some of her teachers. Unable to please them, she retreated into her own world of books and writing.
In 1929 the Camps moved to a chateau near Chamonix in the French Alps, in the hope that the cleaner air would be easier on Charles Camp's lungs. Madeleine herself was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. In 1933 the family moved to northern Florida, and she attended another boarding school, Ashley Hall, in Charleston, South Carolina. When her father died in 1935, she arrived home too late to say goodbye.
She attended Smith College from 1937 to 1941. After graduation she moved to an apartment in New York City. In 1942 she met actor Hugh Franklin when she appeared in the play The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov. L'Engle married Franklin on January 26, 1946, the year after the publication of her autobiographical first novel, The Small Rain. The couple's first daughter, Josephine, was born in 1947.
In 1952 the family moved to a 200-year-old farmhouse called Crosswicks in rural Connecticut. To replace Franklin's lost acting income, they purchased and operated a small general store while L'Engle continued with her writing. Their son, Bion, was born that same year. During this period, L'Engle also served as choir director of the local Congregational Church. In 1956, Maria, the seven-year-old daughter of family friends, came to live with the Franklins after the deaths of her parents, eventually becoming part of the family.
In 1959, the Franklins moved back to New York City, where Hugh could resume his acting career. The move was preceded by a ten-week cross-country camping trip, during which L'Engle first had the idea for her most famous novel, A Wrinkle in Time. L'Engle completed the book in 1960. Literally dozens of publishers rejected the story before Farrar, Straus and Giroux finally published it in 1962.
From 1960 to 1966, L'Engle taught at St. Hilda's and St. Hugh's Anglican School in New York. In 1965 she became a volunteer librarian at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, also in New York. During the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s she wrote dozens of books for children and adults, and won numerous awards in the process. One of her books for adults, Two-Part Invention, was a memoir of her marriage, completed after her husband's death from cancer on September 26, 1986. L'Engle was seriously injured in an automobile accident in 1991, but recovered enough to visit Antarctica in 1992. Bion Franklin died December 17, 1999.
For many years, L'Engle maintained her role as writer-in-residence at Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, generally spending her winters in New York and her summers at Crosswicks. She has been unable to travel or teach in recent years, however, due to reduced mobility from osteoporosis, and especially since suffering a cerebral hemorrhage in 2002. She has also abandoned her former schedule of speaking engagements, seminars, etc. In 2004, she received the National Humanities Medal but could not attend the ceremony due to poor health. Whether any new writing will appear in print in the foreseeable future remains to be seen, but a few compilations of older work, some of it previously unpublished, have appeared since the new millennium.
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Bibliographic overview
L'Engle's best-known works are divided between "chronos" and "kairos"; the former is the framework in which the stories of the Austin family take place, and is presented in a primarily realistic framework, though occasionally with elements that might be regarded as science fiction. The latter is the framework in which the stories of the Murry and O'Keefe families take place, and is presented sometimes in a realistic framework and sometimes in a more fantastic or magical framework. Generally speaking, the more realistic kairos material is found in the O'Keefe stories, which deal with the second generation characters.
The Murry-O'Keefe and Austin families should not be regarded as living in separate worlds, because several characters cross over between them, and historical events are also shared.
In addition to novels and poetry, L'Engle has written many nonfiction titles, including the autobiographical Crosswicks Journals and other explorations of the subjects of faith and art. For L'Engle, who has written repeatedly about "story as truth," the distinction between fiction and memoir is sometimes blurred. Real events from her life and family history have made their way into some of her novels, while fictional elements, such as assumed names for people and places, can be found in her published journals.
A theme often implied and occasionally explicit in L'Engle's works is that what people call religion, science and magic are simply different aspects of a single seamless reality; a similar theme may be discerned in the fiction works of C. S. Lewis or Diane Duane.
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Kairos
First-generation (Murry) (Time quartet)
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Chronos
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Other fiction
Katherine Forrester series:
Prelude (1968), an adaptation of the first half of The Small Rain
Camilla Dickinson:
A Live Coal in the Sea (1996)
Single titles:
And Both Were Young (1949)
The Other Side Of The Sun (1971)
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The Crosswicks Journals
The Summer of the Great-grandmother (1974)
The Irrational Season (1977)
Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage (1988)
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Poetry
Lines Scribbled On An Envelope (1969)
The Weather Of The Heart (1978)
The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L'Engle (2005) (includes reprints from the above)
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About LEngle
Madeleine L'Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Life Compiled by Carole Chase
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Important LEngle characters
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Murry
Margaret "Meg" Murry — Eldest daughter of Alexander and Katherine. Somewhat awkward and plain as an adolescent, she acquired social graces and beauty during the course of her maturation covered in A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, and A Swiftly Tilting Planet. As a child, she was closest to her youngest brother, Charles Wallace; as an adult she is married to Calvin O'Keefe and has seven children. Meg, a mathematical genius, is said not to have completed her Ph.D. as of A House Like a Lotus, but plans to do so once her youngest child is in school. Despite this, she is frequently described as a scientist and mathematician who helps Calvin with his work.
Alexander "Sandy" Murry and Dennys Murry — Twin sons of Alexander and Katherine. They describe themselves as the "squares" of the Murry clan. As teenagers, they take a trip to Biblical times, specifically the time immediately preceding the Deluge. In later life, Sandy is an "anti-corporate" lawyer, and Dennys is a neurosurgeon.
Charles Wallace Murry — The youngest of the Murry clan. Charles Wallace is "something new", i.e., superhuman in intelligence (broadly conceived) and telepathic, an evolutionary next step similar to the Indigo child concept. Charles Wallace is a key protagonist in A Wrinkle in Time and A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and one of his mitochondria is the site for the climax of A Wind in the Door. However, he is mostly absent from the later books. Charles Wallace is small for his age, and is misunderstood and bullied by his peers at school. In later life, Charles Wallace was largely absent from the books owing to secret responsibilities.
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OKeefe
Calvin O'Keefe — Marine biologist, husband of Meg, father of a large brood. As a boy, Calvin was a "sport" among what the uncharitable might call degenerate white trash, excelling academically, socially, and in sports from an early age, but feeling disconnected from his peers. He found a truer home with the Murrys.
Polly/Poly (Polyhymnia) O'Keefe — Eldest child of Meg and Calvin. Named, somewhat to her annoyance, by her eccentric Godfather Canon Tallis. Poly takes part in various socio-political intrigues in Arm of the Starfish and Dragons in the Waters, more personal ones in House like a Lotus, and is incorporated into the Murry time-and-space travel tradition with An Acceptable Time.
Charles O'Keefe — Named for Charles Wallace Murry, Charles is characterized by sensitivity to others, clairvoyance, and an introspective personal style.
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Other
Simon Bolivar Quentin Phair Renier — Simon appears in Dragons in the Waters as a young boy of poor but aristocratic southern background, flung somewhat suddenly into the wide world after the sale of a portrait of Bolivar, which was one of the last heirlooms of his family. He encounters the O'Keefe clan and Canon Tallis, and eventually comes into contact with another set of noble roots in distant Venezuela. Although Simon himself does not appear in other books, some of his relatives appear in Ilsa, The Other Side of the Sun and A House Like a Lotus.
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Recurring Chronos Characters
Vicky Austin — The heroine of the Austin family series of novels and stories, Vicky is a nascent poet and writer, the second eldest of four children. She is usually the first person narrator of the books in which she appears. Often at odds with her younger sister, Suzy, she has a mentor and kindred spirit in her maternal grandfather, retired minister Grandfather Eaton. Vicky dates several boys before developing what may be a more lasting relationship with Adam Eddington.
John Austin — Vicky's scientifically-minded older brother, John, enrolls at M.I.T., and is primarily interested in astrophysics. He also works with Adam Eddington for a summer at the Marine Biology Station on Seven Bay Island. John is intellectually curious and philosophical.
Suzy Austin (Davidson) — Generally considered the beauty of the family, Suzy "has wanted to be a doctor ever since she could talk." She is a vegetarian. As an adult, Suzy is a cardiologist, married to Josiah "Dave" Davidson. They have four children, Josiah (Jos), John, Emily, and Tory.
Rob Austin — The youngest of the Austin children, Robert Austin is curious and loving, with a penchant for insightful questions. Madeleine L'Engle has acknowledged that Rob is based on her own youngest child, Bion Franklin.
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Crossover characters
Canon John Tallis — Episcopal Canon. Tallis is one of the most frequently recurring characters without genetic affiliation to the Murrys and Austins, appearing in four novels. Rather like a cross between G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown and Ian Fleming's James Bond, Tallis provides spiritual leadership and insight into the realms of crime and international intrigue in equal measure. The character is based on L'Engle's spiritual advisor at St. John the Divine, Canon Edward Nason West, who died in 1990.* To preserve West's privacy during his lifetime, L'Engle referred to him as Canon Tallis in her non-fiction as well as her fiction. The name is a reference to composer Thomas Tallis, who composed the Tallis Canon. Because of his namesake, Canon Tallis is nicknamed Tom or Father Tom.
Adam Eddington — Marine biologist. Adam first appears in Arm of the Starfish working as an intern for Calvin O'Keefe. He is caught up in a power struggle between the O'Keefes and an unscrupulous industrialist vying for control of an emergent medical technology. Later, working with dolphins (to which he was introduced by Polly O'Keefe) in New England, he comes into contact with Vicky Austin. More international intrigue later ensnares Adam and Vicky when she follows Adam to Antarctica.
Zachary Gray — Student. Extremely affluent, disaffected young man, oscillating between his desires for redemption and self-destruction. Has rather complex relationships with both Vicky Austin and (later) Polly O'Keefe. Like Canon Tallis, he appears in four novels. Charming, exciting, unpredictable and emotionally needy, Zach brings out the best in Vicky and Polly, but they cannot save him from himself.
Katherine Forrester (Vigneras) — Pianist. Main character of The Small Rain (the first half of which was republished as Prelude) and A Severed Wasp. In The Small Rain, Katherine Forrester is a gifted but socially isolated adolescent studying to be a concert pianist at a strict boarding school. Katherine reappears in Severed Wasp at the other end of her life, as an old woman (now Katherine Vigneras, from her marriage to her piano teacher/mentor Justin) looking back on her life and career. Katherine Vigneras also appears very briefly in A Ring of Endless Light when she plays a recital that Vicky Austin and Zachary Gray attend. In Severed Wasp, she has a portrait of her daughter painted by Philippa Hunter, protagonist (as a young girl) of And Both Were Young.
Mimi Oppenheimer (Mimi Opp) — Surgeon. She attends the same boarding school as Virginia Bowen, and stays with the family in the Haute-Savoie. She later appears as Katherine Forrester's neighbor and friend in A Severed Wasp.
Josiah "Dave" Davidson — Dean. A somewhat troubled teenager at the time of The Young Unicorns, Dave is a carpenter's son, a former gang member and choir boy, and the friend and sometime protector of the Austin children. As an adult he is dean at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, married to the former Suzy Austin, and a friend of Mimi Oppenheimer.
Virginia Bowen Porcher — Writer. Virginia ("Vee") Bowen first appears in A Winter's Love as the daughter of a woman who falls in love with another man during a difficult time in her marriage. She reappears in A House Like a Lotus as Virginia Bowen Porcher, Polly O'Keefe's favorite writer. Her husband, Henri Porcher, is a descendant of Henry Porcher of Ilsa, and institutionalized with a hereditary form of insanity.
Frank Rowan — Publisher. Frank first appears in Camilla Dickinson as Camilla's first love. He turns up again in A House Like a Lotus as "the publisher of a small educational press in Istanbul." By that point, he has lost his wife and his leg in an automobile accident in the United States.
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