A Wrinkle in Time
A Wrinkle in Time is a young adult novel written by American author Madeleine L’Engle. First published in 1962,[2] the book has won the Newbery Medal, the Sequoyah Book Award, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and was runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award.[3][a] The main characters—Meg Murry, Charles Wallace Murry, and Calvin O’Keefe—embark on a journey through space and time, from galaxy to galaxy, as they endeavor to save the Murrys’ father and the world. The novel offers a glimpse into the war between light and darkness, and good and evil, as the young characters mature into adolescents on their journey.[4] The novel wrestles with questions of spirituality and purpose, as the characters are often thrown into conflicts of love, divinity, and goodness.[4] It is the first book in L’Engle’s Time Quintet, which follows the Murrys and Calvin O’Keefe.
L’Engle modeled the Murry family on her own. Scholar Bernice E. Cullinan noted that L’Engle created characters who “share common joy with a mixed fantasy and science fiction setting.”[5] The novel’s scientific and religious undertones are therefore highly reflective of the life of L’Engle.[6]
The book has inspired two film adaptations, both by Disney: a 2003 television film directed by John Kent Harrison, and a 2018 theatrical film directed by Ava DuVernay.
Raised in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, author Madeleine L’Engle began writing at a young age.[7] After graduating from boarding school in Switzerland, she attended Smith College, where she earned a degree in English.[8] In addition to writing, L’Engle also gained experience as an actor and playwright.[7] At age forty, she nearly abandoned her career as a novelist, but continued to write after her publication of Meet the Austins.[7]
L’Engle wrote A Wrinkle in Time between 1959 and 1960.[9] In her memoir, A Circle of Quiet (1972), L’Engle explains that the book was conceived “during a time of transition.”[10] After years of living in rural Goshen, Connecticut where they ran a general store, L’Engle’s family, the Franklins, moved back to New York City, first taking a ten-week camping trip across the country. L’Engle writes that “we drove through a world of deserts and buttes and leafless mountains, wholly new and alien to me. And suddenly into my mind came the names, Mrs Whatsit. Mrs Who. Mrs Which.”[11] This was in the spring of 1959. When asked for more information in an interview with Horn Book magazine in 1983, L’Engle responded “I cannot possibly tell you how I came to write it. It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice. It was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant.” L’Engle has also described the novel as her “psalm of praise to life, [her] stand for life against death.”[12]
Additionally, L’Engle drew upon her interest in science. The novel includes references to Einstein’s theory of relativity and Planck’s quantum theory.[7]
A Wrinkle in Time is the first novel in the Time Quintet, a series of five young adult novels written by Madeleine L’Engle.[13] Later books include A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time.[13] The series follows the adventures of Meg Murry, her youngest brother Charles Wallace Murry, their friend Calvin O’Keefe, and her twin siblings Sandy and Dennys Murry.[13] Throughout the series, the friends band together to travel through space and time as they attempt to save the world from the grasps of evil.[13]
