Material received from Madeleine L'Engle between 1973 and 1978.
Non-circulating; available for research.
This collection is protected by the Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, U. S. Code). Reproductions can be made only if they are to be used for "private study, scholarship, or research." It is the user's responsibility to verify copyright ownership and to obtain all necessary permissions prior to the reproduction, publication, or other use of any portion of these materials, other than that noted above.
Madeleine L'Engle Camp Franklin, whose pen name is Madeleine L'Engle, was born in New York City on November 29, 1918. When she was twelve years old, L'Engle attended a Swiss boarding school for two years. She completed her preparatory education in South Carolina and went on to receive a Bachelor's degree in English from Smith College in 1941. She attended the New School for Social Research in New York from 1941 to 1942 and did graduate work at Columbia University from 1960 to 1961. L'Engle had an active career in the theater from 1941 to 1947, and hoped someday to become a playwright. It was during this time that she met her future husband, Hugh Franklin, while both were performing in Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard." It was also during this period that L'Engle published her first book, The Small Rain (1945).
During most of the 1950s, L'Engle and her family lived in northwestern Connecticut where her husband operated a small general store and she tried to find time for writing while being a wife and mother of small children as well as part time clerk in the store. During this time, most of L'Engle's manuscripts were rejected and in 1958 she determined to give up writing altogether. She soon found, though, that she could not stop, that she needed to write in order to be happy. Her work began to sell and in 1963 she won the Newbery Award for A Wrinkle in Time.
In the summer months of 1965, 1966 and 1971, L'Engle served on the faculty of the University of Indiana in Bloomington. She was writer-in-residence at Ohio State University, Columbus, in 1970 and at the University of Rochester in New York in 1972. L'Engle has been a teacher at St. Hilda's and St. Hugh's School in New York and a librarian at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. She was also lecturer at Wheaton College, Illinois.
L'Engle has written poetry, plays, autobiographies, short stories, articles, and novels for children and adults. Her work explores a number of issues including Einsteinian concepts of time and space, telepathic communication, injustice, evil, war, the environment, and personal and religious love. Although many of her works of fiction are classified as "juvenile," she never consciously writes for children. According to L'Engle, she writes about what interests her, what she is passionately concerned about at the moment, which usually involves a theological concept. She blends science fiction, fantasy and moral issues in her work.
L'Engle's most famous book, A Wrinkle in Time, was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1963 and the Sequoyah and the Lewis Carroll Shelf awards in 1965. It was also runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1964. L'Engle received the Austrian State Prize in 1969 for The Moon by Night, the American Book Award in 1980 for A Swiftly Tilting Planet and the Newbery honor book in 1981 for A Ring of Endless Light. She was awarded the University of Southern Mississippi's Silver Medallion in 1978. Ms. L'Engle passed away on September 5, 2007 at the age of 88.
Sources:
The collection contains correspondence from L'Engle to the de Grummond Collection; material relating to awards and honors, including L'Engle's acceptance speech of the University of Southern Mississippi's Medallion in 1978 entitled "The Freedom of Service in the Life of a Writer"; and material for nine titles published between 1951 and 1976. For four of the titles, the collection includes multiple, revised typescript drafts and, although the order in which these drafts were produced is unclear, examination reveals the many steps involved in the writer's creative process. The material for the books, which is representative of twenty-five years of L'Engle's writing career, is arranged alphabetically by title; for each title the organization of the material reflects the probable order in which it was generated (e.g., rough notes, typescript, galley, page proofs).
The Arm of the Starfish (1965) is the story of a marine biology student working on an island off Portugal for the summer who finds himself involved in a power struggle between his boss and another group of Americans. For this title, the collection contains an edited typescript and unidentified musical score. Camilla Dickinson (1951) which chronicles young Camilla's relationship with her best friend's brother, has been favorably compared to J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye. L'Engle reissued this novel in 1965. Included in the collection for this title are a typescript, marked for the typesetter, and two sets of galleys for the 1965 edition.
In Dragons in the Waters (1976) a thirteen-year-old boy travels to Venezuela with his cousin and is soon involved in a murder. The boys also form an unexpected bond with an Indian tribe. The collection holds master proofs for this title. For The Journey with Jonah (1967), a dramatization of the Biblical story of the prophet who spent three days in the belly of a whale, the collection includes a typescript marked for the typesetter, master galleys and master proofs. Lines Scribbled on an Envelope (1969) is a volume of poetry. The collection has two sets of galleys, one of which is the author's. The Summer of the Great Grandmother (1974) is part of an autobiographical trilogy published as The Crosswicks Journal in 1972 and published separately in 1974. In it L'Engle details the last year of her mother's extraordinary life. For this title, the collection includes several partial typescripts, an edited typescript and uncorrected page proofs of the 1974 edition.
For The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas (1964), a story about a little girl who is afraid to perform in the Christmas play, the collection has one set of corrected galleys. A Wind in the Door (1973) is the story of Meg Murry's struggle to help her six-year-old brother fight for his life. For this title, the collection contains a partial manuscript, a partial typescript, a typescript marked for the typesetter, author's edited galleys, master galleys and proofs, reproduction proofs, and galleys for the English edition. L'Engle won the Newbery Medal for A Wrinkle in Time (1962), the first title in her now famous "time" trilogy. In this story, Meg Murry searches for her father who mysteriously disappeared while working on a secret project for the government. For this title there are two incomplete typescripts with irregular pagination and a complete, edited typescript.
The Leonard Everett Fisher Papers (DG0327)
Box/Folder
A. Correspondence Series
1/1 To the de Grummond Collection, 1966-1987, 9 items.
B. Awards and Honors Series
1/2 Newbery/Caldecott Awards Dinner program, 1962.
-- Photograph, University of Southern Mississippi Book Festival, 1973.
-- University of Southern Mississippi Book Festival, 1978, program and typescript of speech,
-- "Freedom of Service in the Life of a Writer," 2 drafts.
C. Books Series
THE ARM OF THE STARFISH by Madeleine L'Engle (New York:
Ariel Books, 1965).
1/3-1/8 Typescript, corrected,
1/3 chapters 1-4, pp. 1-44;
1/4 chapters 5-8, pp. 45-93;
1/5 chapters 9-11, pp. 94-136;
1/6 chapters 12-14, pp. 137-179;
1/7 chapters 15-19, pp. 180-235;
1/8 corrected, chapters 20-24, pp. 236-295.
-- Musical score, 11 measures, 1 item.
CAMILLA DICKINSON, A NOVEL by Madeleine L'Engle (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1951) / CAMILLA DICKINSON by
Madeleine L'Engle (New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1965).
2/1-2/7 Typescript, marked for typesetter,
2/1 front matter, 4 pp., and chapter 1,
pp. 1-36;
2/2 chapter 2, pp. 37-75;
2/3 chapters 3-4, pp. 76-118;
2/4 chapters 5-6, pp. 119-171;
2/5 chapters 7-8, pp. 172-232;
2/6 chapters 9-10, pp. 233-283;
2/7 chapter 11 and "About the Author," pp. 284-303.
2/8 - 9 Galleys, 21 April 1965, edited,
2/8 pp. 1-36;
2/9 pp. 37-80.
3/1-3/2 Galleys, with page breaks, 7 June 1965, edited,
3/1 pp. 1-171;
3/2 pp. 172-281.
3/3 Proofs, front matter, 5 pp.
DRAGONS IN THE WATERS by Madeleine L'Engle (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1976).
3/4-3/6 Proofs, master set, 29 January 1976,
3/4 front matter and pp. 3-117;
3/5 pp. 118-211;
3/6 pp. 212-293.
THE JOURNEY WITH JONAH by Madeleine L'Engle, illustrated by Leonard Everett Fisher(New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 1967).
3/7 Typescript, marked for typesetter, front matter,
6 pp., and pp. 1-29.
3/8 Galleys, master set, 6 March 1967, pp. 1-27.
3/9 Proofs, master set, 1 May 1967, pp. 1-64.
LINES SCRIBBLED ON AN ENVELOPE by Madeleine L'Engle (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1969).
4/1 Author's galleys, front matter and pp. 1-21.
4/2 Galleys with page breaks, front matter and
pp. 3-76.
THE SUMMER OF THE GREAT GRANDMOTHER by Madeleine L'Engle (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974).
4/3-4/6 Typescript, edited, irregular pagination,
4/3 cover pages, pp. 6-47;
4/4 pp. 46B-70H;
4/5 pp. 50-78;
4/6 pp. 91-165;
4/7-5/1 Typescript, edited,
4/7 pp. 1-7, 1-20A, 38A-38G, 39, 42, 41D-44;
4/8 67, 71-83, 78, 83, 79-81, 81-87,
83A-83E, 84-89;
5/1 pp. 114-115, 116, 120A, 145-146, 154B,
164-165, and 14 unpaginated pp.
5/2-5/5 Typescript, edited, with handwritten and photocopy
inserts, irregular pagination,
5/2 chapter 1, pp. 1-63 [p. 41 missing];
5/3 chapter 2, pp. 64-96 [p. 87 missing];
5/4 chapter 3, pp. 97-145 and 7 unpaginated pp.;
5/5 chapter 4, pp. 146-169.
5/6 Proofs, pp. 1-262.
5/7 Photographs, photocopied, 36 pp.
THE TWENTY-FOUR DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS by Madeleine L'Engle (New York: Farrar, Straus & Company, 1964).
5/8 Galleys, corrected, pp. 1-11.
A WIND IN THE DOOR by Madeleine L'Engle (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1973).
6/1 Manuscript, irregular pagination, pp. 173-197.
6/2 Typescript, original, edited, pp. 30-109, incomplete.
Photocopy of above typescript, edited, pp. 34-115, incomplete.
Typescript, carbon, edited, pp. 109-159, incomplete.
6/3 Typescript, original, edited, pp. 172-217.
6/4 Typescript, carbon of typescript in Folder 6/3,
edited, pp. 172-220, incomplete.
6/5 Typescript, photocopy of typescript in Folder 6/3,
edited, irregular pagination, pp. 204-220.
6/6-6/8 Typescript, edited and marked for typesetter,
front matter, 8 pp., and chapters 1-3,
6/6 pp. 1-66;
6/7 chapters 4-7, pp. 67-133;
6/8 chapters 8-12, pp. 134-204.
7/1-7/2 Galleys for author, edited,
7/1 pp. 1-37;
7/2 pp. 38-77.
7/3-7/4 Galleys, master set, 18 January 1973,
7/3 pp. 1-35;
7/4 pp. 36-77.
7/5-7/6 Proofs, master set, 8 February 1973,
7/5 front matter and pp. 1-109;
7/6 pp. 110-211.
7/7-8/1 Proofs,
7/7 front matter and pp. 1-103;
8/1 pp. 104-211.
8/2 Galleys for English edition (Methuen), edited, pp. 8-65, incomplete.
A WRINKLE IN TIME by Madeleine L'Engle (New York: Straus and Giroux, 1962).
8/3 Typescript, early draft, edited,
table of contents and chapters 8-12, pp. 129-199, incomplete.
8/4-8/5 Typescript, revised, edited
8/4 table of contents, p. 101 and chapters 8-9, pp. 128-156;
8/5 chapters 10-12, pp. 157-202.
8/6-8/9 Typescript, final, edited
8/6 table of contents and chapters 1-2, pp. 1-34;
8/7 chapters 3-5, pp. 35-84;
8/8 chapters 6-8, pp. 85-129;
8/9 chapters 9-12, pp. 130-201.
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