A biography of Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine L'Engle is one of America's best known authors of fiction for children and young adults. Her work is often concerned with what humans call magic, science or religion are in essence all a part of the same blended, continuous reality. Her novel 'A Wrinkle In Time' earned her a Newbery Award.

Early life

Madeleine L'Engle Camp was born in New York City on November 29, 1918. Her mother, also called Madeleine, was a pianist whilst her father, Charles Wadsworth Camp, was a writer, critic and World War One veteran. Education
Although writing at home from the age of five, L'Engle was a shy child who struggled to impose herself at the New York private school at which she was enrolled. With her parents often at odds about how she should be raised, the young Madeleine was sent to numerous boarding schools and taught by several governesses. Her family also traveled to the French Alps in the hope that the climate there would help with her father's respiratory ailments. Charles Camp died in 1935, with Madeleine, who was at boarding school in North Carolina at the time, arriving at his bedside too late to say goodbye.
Personal life
After graduating from Smith College in 1941, she moved to New York City, where she met and married actor Hugh Franklin. Her first novel, 'The Small Rain', was published in 1945. The couple's first daughter, Josephine, was born in 1947, with a son, Bion, following in 1952. They also adopted a seven-year-old daughter whose deceased parents had been friends of the family four years later.
Publishing
After having lived in Connecticut for seven years, they returned to New York in 1959, partially so that L'Engle's husband could resume his acting career. The writer's most famous novel, 'A Wrinkle In Time' was conceived around this time and published in 1962 after being rejected by several publishers. It later won the Newbery Award.

Later career & work

Her writing career
L'Engle wrote prolifically throughout the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, producing dozens of books for adults and children. Her best known works are divided between the 'Chronos' and 'Kairos' frameworks. The former deal largely with the Austin family and the latter with the Murray and O'Keefe families, though there is crossover between the frameworks. Religion
Christianity was an important basis of her work, with some critics being negative about her religiosity. She attracted some religious critics though, who could not relate to her stated belief in Universal Salvation.
Death
L'Engle died of natural causes at a nursing facility close to her home in Litchfield, Connecticut, on September 6, 2007. She is buried in the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine in Manhattan, New York City.