Dimensions of Madeleine L'Engle : Critical Essays on the Fiction

It will soon be ten years since Madeleine L'Engle died on September 6th, 2007, after a long, successful career as a writer. From 1963, when her best-known novel, A Wrinkle in Time, won the Newberry Medal, L'Engle was in the public eye, everything she wrote sold well and she was in constant demand to give speeches, write prefaces, advise and encourage younger writers. However, in spite of her overwhelming success with the reading public, L'Engle has been largely ignored by academia. Although several biographies have been published, as well as many testimonies of her influence as a teacher and spiritual director, very little real literary criticism has been done on any of L'Engle's work except on the first three books of the time quintet, and practically no serious articles have been published on any of her adult fiction. At the time of writing, practically nothing academic at all has been written on her religious writings, poems or short stories and there has been little attempt to situate her in her geographical and literary context. This book is an attempt to stimulate intellectual discussion about all L'Engle's work and to show that the vast majority of her writings, not only the best-known children's books, are worthy of interest.