Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine L'Engle Camp was born on November 29th, 1918 in New York City, New York. She was the daughter of a writer and a pianist. L' Engle (Originally named Camp) wrote her first story at the age of five and began writing regularly at the age of eight. However, she was ostracized by the teachers in her school who assumed she was dumb and branded her as such. L'Engle retreated into a world of books and writing. During her childhood, L'Engle's family moved around the world frequently before her father's death in 1935.

In 1937, L'Engle settled in New York and began attending Smith College where she graduated cum laude four years later. In 1942 she met the actor Hugh Franklin while appearing in a play with him and later married him in 1946. In 1945, her first novel, "The Small Rain" was published.

L'Engle gave birth to her first daughter, Josephine a year after marrying and the family moved to Goshen, Connecticut shortly afterward where they bought and ran a small general store. In 1952, L'Engle gave birth to her son, Bion and seven years later adopted the child of a recently deceased family friend named Maria.

The family moved back to New York in 1959 so that Hugh could begin acting again and it was during a camping trip shortly later that L'Engle came up with the idea for her most successful novel, "A Wrinkle in Time." She began writing and completed the novel the next year. However, it was rejected by over thirty different publishers before finally being picked up by a company called Farra, Straus and Giroux in 1962. During the 60's, L'Engle taught at St. Hilda's and St' Hugh's School in New York and worked as a librarian at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She was a devout Episcopalian and often shared her beliefs through her work.

Throughout the 60's, 70's and 80's, L'Engle continued to write the 'Wrinkle in Time' series and the subsequent off shoot of the series about the O'Keefe children. She also completed several other series such as the "Katherine Forrester" series and the "Chronos" series.

L'Engle received many personal honors and prizes over the years including The Newbury Award for "A Wrinkle in Time," a National Humanities Medal in 2004 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Series in 1997.

In 1986, L'Engle's husband, Hugh died of cancer. For many years after this L'Engle continued to write and do speaking arrangements until she died of natural causes on September 6th, 2007 in Litchfield, Connecticut. She is interred at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City, New York.