Behind the Story: A Wrinkle in Time

A look at what inspired and influenced Madeleine L’Engle to write her classic children’s novel

Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time is a well-loved young adult classic. Published in 1962, the novel took home a number of awards—including the Newbery Medal—and has been adapted for the screen at least twice. L’Engle’s book follows protagonist Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace Murry, and friend Calvin O'Keefe as they journey through space and time, from galaxy to galaxy, to rescue the Murrys' father and fight back against evil. The novel delves into themes of faith and good versus evil in a fantasy/science fiction setting.

Yet while the storyline of A Wrinkle in Time may be familiar, the story behind the novel might not. So, today, we’re taking a look at where L’Engle got the idea, how the novel came to be published and more.

Where did the idea come from?

Like most books, there’s probably not one single answer to that question. L’Engle publicly stated a couple of influences or inspirations. One, stated in an interview with her publisher before her death in 2007, was Einstein’s theory of relativity. “I used a lot of those principles to make a universe that was creative and yet believable,” L’Engle reportedly said. Another was the cross-country road trip L’Engle took with her husband and children in the spring of 1959 while she was reading about Einstein’s theory of relativity. “We drove through a world of deserts and buttes and leafless mountains, wholly new and alien to me,” L’Engle recalled in her memoir, A Circle of Quiet. “And suddenly into my mind came the names, Mrs Whatsit. Mrs Who. Mrs Which.”

How long did it take to get the novel published?

Sources vary, but we can reasonably estimate that L’Engle’s manuscript was rejected by anywhere from 26 or 30 publishers to 40. In the late 40s and early 50s, L’Engle had published a number of novels and children’s books, but had put her publishing career on hold to devote time to her family. On her 40th birthday, when L’Engle received news of another rejection, she had vowed to stop writing, but found that she couldn’t. She completed A Wrinkle in Time in 1962, but it would be another two years before it was published. Publishers rejected the novel right and left because it was so different from other children’s or young adult literature of the time. L’Engle met publisher John C. Farrar at a tea party she threw for her mother and shared the manuscript with him, leading to the book’s eventual publication.

What was L’Engle’s approach to writing?

L’Engle understood that while writing could be a solitary act, it is ultimately a form of communication. “The writing of a book may be a solitary business," she wrote, "it is done alone. The writer sits down with paper and pen, or typewriter, and, withdrawn from the world, tries to set down the story that is crying to be written. We write alone, but we do not write in isolation. No matter how fantastic a story line may be, it still comes out of our response to what is happening to us and to the world in which we live.”

Resources consulted for this article include:

• Pamela Paul, “‘A Wrinkle in Time’ and Its Sci-Fi Heroine,” New York Times, January 27, 2012. Accessed here.

• “Meet Madeleine L’Engle,” The Kennedy Center. Accessed here.

• “Madeleine L'Engle,” National Humanities Medal, 2004, National Endowment for the Humanities. Accessed here.

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