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On her fortieth birthday, in November 1958, Madeleine L'Engle opened yet another rejection letter and decided to give up writing. She did not manage it. The novel she finished by 1960, A Wrinkle in Time, was turned down by more than two dozen publishers before it came out in 1962, and a year later it won the Newbery Medal. By the time she died in 2007 she had written more than sixty books: novels for children and for adults, four volumes of journals, poetry and books on faith and art. This guide covers every novel in the order it was published, everything else she wrote, and which book to start with.
By Lisanne Swart · 60+ books · 24 novels · Female authors · 1945–2020 · Updated September 2026
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Quick answer
Madeleine L'Engle wrote more than sixty books, including 24 novels, from The Small Rain (1945) to The Joys of Love, published in 2008, the year after her death. She is best known for A Wrinkle in Time (1962), the first of the five-book Time Quintet and the best place to start. Her other series follow the Austin family and the O'Keefe family, and she also wrote novels for adults, four volumes of journals, poetry and books on faith and art.
Watch: A portrait of Madeleine L'Engle at home
Quick facts about Madeleine L'Engle
- Born
- 29 November 1918, New York City, as Madeleine L'Engle Camp
- Died
- 6 September 2007, Litchfield, Connecticut
- Education
- Smith College (BA, 1941)
- Married
- The actor Hugh Franklin, from 1946 until his death in 1986; they met in The Cherry Orchard
- Homes
- Crosswicks, a farmhouse in Goshen, Connecticut, and the Upper West Side of Manhattan
- Books
- More than sixty
- Novels
- 24, from The Small Rain (1945) to The Joys of Love (2008)
- Known for
- A Wrinkle in Time (1962), Newbery Medal 1963
- Other awards
- National Book Award for A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1980); Newbery Honor for A Ring of Endless Light; Margaret A. Edwards Award (1998); National Humanities Medal (2004)
- Also
- Librarian and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine; president of the Authors Guild; a crater on Mercury carries her name
All 24 Madeleine L'Engle Novels, in Order
The Small Rain
Katherine Forrester is a gifted but lonely girl training to become a concert pianist at a strict boarding school, and the novel follows her into young adulthood in New York, where she has to decide what she will give up for her music. L'Engle wrote it while touring as an actress. The first half was later published on its own as Prelude (1968), and Katherine returns, in her seventies, in A Severed Wasp.
Read this before A Severed Wasp. It is a young writer's book, but the question L'Engle kept asking for the rest of her life is already here: what does it cost to give yourself to your art?
— LisanneIlsa
Henry Porcher is ten when he first sees thirteen-year-old Ilsa Brandes, the daughter of a naturalist who lives in a house on a beach outside a small town in the Deep South. He loves her for the rest of his life, and watches from nearby as she becomes a wife, a mother and a widow. Out of print for nearly sixty years before it was reissued.
It is the least like anything else she wrote: slow, Southern and dark, a novel about a love that never gets an answer.
— LisanneAnd Both Were Young
Philippa “Flip” Hunter, a young artist, is miserable when she is sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. She meets Paul, a French boy living at a nearby chateau who cannot remember his past, and with his help and a sympathetic art teacher she finds her feet, and secretly learns to ski. It was L'Engle's first book for young readers, drawn loosely on her own Swiss schooldays, and was revised in 1983.
The one to give a thirteen-year-old who has just been sent somewhere she does not want to be. It is gentle and a little old-fashioned, and it knows exactly how lonely a new school can feel.
— LisanneCamilla
First published as Camilla Dickinson and reissued in 1965 as Camilla. Camilla is a teenager whose unhappy mother is on the edge of an affair with a man Camilla cannot stand, while Camilla herself falls for Frank Rowan, her best friend's older brother. The book was filmed in 2012, and L'Engle returned to Camilla in A Live Coal in the Sea (1996).
Read it together with A Live Coal in the Sea, in which Camilla, by then an astronomer and a grandmother, tells her own story. The pair shows a character growing old alongside her author.
— LisanneA Winter's Love
Courtney Bowen has lost his university job, and he takes his wife, Emily, and their two daughters to spend a year in the Haute-Savoie in the French Alps. As Courtney withdraws into his work, Emily finds herself falling in love with an old friend, Abe Fielding, and has to decide between the life she has built and the one she is offered.
A quiet, grown-up book about staying or leaving. Read it to see what she could do with a marriage before she ever wrote a tesseract.
— LisanneMeet the Austins
Twelve-year-old Vicky Austin tells the story of the year a family friend's plane goes down and the co-pilot's orphaned daughter, Maggy Hamilton, comes to live with the Austins, turning the house upside down. The book was rejected many times, reportedly because it opens with a death. A chapter left out of the first edition, “The Anti-Muffins”, was restored in 1997.
Start here if you are reading with a younger child. It is warm and funny, and it does not look away from the death on its first pages.
— LisanneA Wrinkle in Time
Meg Murry, awkward and clever at maths, her strange little brother Charles Wallace and their friend Calvin O'Keefe are carried across space by three odd beings, Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who and Mrs Which, to rescue Meg's father, a scientist held prisoner on another planet. It won the 1963 Newbery Medal and was filmed for television in 2003 and for cinema in 2018, directed by Ava DuVernay.
Start here, whatever your age. Meg is prickly, impatient and unsure of herself, and the book trusts exactly that girl to save her father.
— LisanneThe Moon by Night
Vicky, now fourteen, is unhappy that the family is moving from Connecticut to New York. Before the move her parents take the children on a ten-week camping trip across the country, during which she meets two very different boys: the charming, unpredictable Zachary Gray and the steadier Andy Ford. There are no fantasy elements at all.
Read it as a road trip. L'Engle made the same ten-week journey with her own family, and it was on that trip that she first had the idea for A Wrinkle in Time.
— LisanneThe Arm of the Starfish
Adam Eddington, a young marine biology student, takes a summer job on Gaea, an island off the coast of Portugal, working for the famous scientist Dr Calvin O'Keefe, who is doing advanced research into regeneration. On the way he is drawn into a struggle between the O'Keefes, including their daughter Poly, and a ruthless industrialist who wants control of the discovery.
The way into the O'Keefe books if you like thrillers. It reads like a spy story first, and it is where Adam Eddington begins.
— LisanneThe Love Letters
After the death of her young son, Andrew, and cruel words from her husband, Patrick, Charlotte Napier runs away to Portugal, where her mother-in-law, Dame Violet Napier, lives. The novel was later revised and reissued as Love Letters.
For readers of her adult fiction. It is about grief and a marriage under strain, and it is more patient than most readers expect from her.
— LisanneThe Young Unicorns
The Austins have settled in New York, where they befriend Emily Gregory, a blind girl who is a gifted pianist, and Dave Davidson, a former gang member who helps her get around. Around them gather a street gang, a supposed genie and a dangerous new medical technology, in a mystery set partly at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Unusually for the series, it is told in the third person.
The strangest Austin book, and the one set in her own cathedral. If A Severed Wasp is on your list, read this first, so you recognise the grown-ups there.
— LisanneThe Other Side of the Sun
In 1910, nineteen-year-old Stella Renier arrives from England as a new bride to stay with her husband's aristocratic family in the American South, and is caught up in feuds and secrets that reach back to the Civil War. The novel moves between Stella at nineteen and Stella as a grandmother in her eighties.
Her Southern gothic. Read it if you liked Ilsa, or if Dragons in the Waters left you wanting more of the Renier family.
— LisanneA Wind in the Door
A year after A Wrinkle in Time, Charles Wallace falls dangerously ill. To save him, Meg, Calvin and their unloved school principal, Mr Jenkins, have to travel inside one of his mitochondria, where they meet a cherubim called Proginoskes and fight the Echthroi, the forces of “unnaming”. It was published eleven years after the first book.
Harder and stranger than A Wrinkle in Time, because the whole adventure happens inside a boy's cell. Read it straight after the first book, while Meg is still fresh.
— LisanneDragons in the Waters
Thirteen-year-old Simon Renier sails on a freighter to Venezuela with a cousin who has bought the family's heirloom portrait of Simon Bolívar. When the cousin is murdered and the painting disappears, Poly and Charles O'Keefe, fellow passengers, realise Simon is in danger, and Poly's godfather, Canon Tallis, is called in.
The most fun of the O'Keefe books: a portrait, a freighter and a murder on board. Give it to a reader who likes a mystery.
— LisanneA Swiftly Tilting Planet
Ten years after A Wrinkle in Time, Meg is married to Calvin and expecting a child, and the world is threatened with nuclear war. Fifteen-year-old Charles Wallace travels back through history on a unicorn, entering the lives of people in the past to change what “might have been”, while Meg follows him in her mind from home. It won the National Book Award in 1980.
The clearest example of what L'Engle does: a boy on a unicorn, riding through history to stop a nuclear war. It should not work, and it does.
— LisanneA Ring of Endless Light
The summer after The Young Unicorns, Vicky Austin stays on an island with her grandfather, a retired minister who is dying. While death keeps coming closer, she helps Adam Eddington with his research into communicating with dolphins and is courted by three very different young men. It was a Newbery Honor book and was filmed for the Disney Channel.
The book I would give a teenager who has lost someone. It is honest about grief, and it does not pretend the dolphins make it go away.
— LisanneA Severed Wasp
Katherine Vigneras, the Katherine Forrester of The Small Rain, returns to New York in her seventies, widowed and retired after a career as a concert pianist in Europe. An old friend from her Greenwich Village days, now a retired bishop, asks her to give a benefit concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, and she is drawn into the troubled life of the cathedral community. Several characters from her other books appear as adults.
Read The Small Rain first. This is the book where many of her characters come back grown up, and it rewards everyone who has followed them.
— LisanneA House Like a Lotus
Sixteen-year-old Polly O'Keefe travels to Greece and Cyprus, where she will help at a literary conference, on a trip paid for by her friend and mentor Max Horne, a painter. As she travels, the story of their friendship, and of what went wrong between them, comes out in flashbacks. It is the only one of the Polly books told in the first person.
The most grown-up of the O'Keefe books, and not one for younger readers. Polly has to forgive someone she loved, and L'Engle does not make it easy.
— LisanneMany Waters
Meg's twin brothers, Sandy and Dennys, type something into their father's computer while an experiment is running and find themselves in a desert in the days before the Flood. They are taken in by Noah's family and meet seraphim and miniature mammoths. The title comes from the Song of Solomon, and the story takes place before A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
The lightest of the five, and the twins finally get their own story. If you want the series in story order, read it before A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
— LisanneAn Acceptable Time
Polly O'Keefe, staying with her grandparents, the Murrys, in Connecticut, walks into a time 3,000 years in the past and is caught up in a struggle between the People of the Wind and a drought-stricken tribe across the lake. It closes both the Time Quintet and the O'Keefe books.
Read it last. It pulls the Murry and O'Keefe books together, and it only really works if you already know Polly.
— LisanneCertain Women
Emma Wheaton, an actress, joins her large family as her father, David, is dying. Waiting with him, she comes to terms with the hurts of her past and has to think about her own uncertain future. Running underneath the family's story is the story of the biblical King David.
Her most ambitious adult novel. Read it if you know the story of King David, or want to.
— LisanneTroubling a Star
The last full novel about Vicky Austin opens with her stranded alone on an iceberg off the coast of Antarctica. In flashbacks we learn how Adam Eddington's aunt paid for Vicky to visit him in Antarctica, and how she became tangled up in political and environmental intrigue on the way.
Read it straight after A Ring of Endless Light, because it starts only a few months later. It turns the Austin series into an adventure story.
— LisanneA Live Coal in the Sea
Camilla Dickinson, now a distinguished astronomer, is asked by her granddaughter, Raffi, whether she is really her grandmother. Answering means telling the whole story: her mother's affairs, her marriage to Mac Xanthakos, an Episcopal priest, and the secrets that surround her son, a troubled television star. It was her last novel published in her lifetime.
The one to read if you have only ever known her as a children's writer.
— LisanneThe Joys of Love
In the summer of 1946, twenty-year-old Elizabeth is an apprentice actress at a summer theatre by the sea, and falls for Kurt Canitz, the company's young director, who is not the man she thinks he is. L'Engle wrote it in the 1940s; it was published for the first time in 2008, a year after her death, thanks to her granddaughters.
A gift for people who already love her. It is a slight book, but Elizabeth is L'Engle at twenty, and you can hear it.
— LisanneMadeleine L'Engle's Most Famous Books
When the American Library Association gave her the Margaret A. Edwards Award for her lifetime contribution to young adult literature in 1998, it named four books. They are the four below.
- A Wrinkle in Time (1962) — Meg, Charles Wallace, Calvin and the tesseract; the Newbery Medal. Read the entry →
- Meet the Austins (1960) — the first Austin family novel. Read the entry →
- A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978) — the third Time Quintet book and a National Book Award. Read the entry →
- A Ring of Endless Light (1980) — Vicky Austin, the dolphins and a Newbery Honor. Read the entry →
Where to Start with Madeleine L'Engle
Most readers start with A Wrinkle in Time, and most should. What you read next depends on who you are reading for.
If you read only one
→ A Wrinkle in Time (1962).
If you loved A Wrinkle in Time
→ A Wind in the Door (1973), then the rest of the Time Quintet in the order below.
If you are reading with a younger child
→ Meet the Austins (1960).
If you are a teenager who has lost someone
→ A Ring of Endless Light (1980).
If you like mysteries and thrillers
→ The Arm of the Starfish (1965), then Dragons in the Waters (1976).
If you want her novels for adults
→ A Severed Wasp (1982) and A Live Coal in the Sea (1996).
If you want L'Engle on L'Engle
→ A Circle of Quiet (1972), or Two-Part Invention (1988), about her marriage.
If you write, paint or make music
→ Walking on Water (1980).
If you want more books like hers
→ My best fiction books of all time list, or books about grief.
Reading Order for the Time Quintet, the O'Keefes and the Austins
Almost every L'Engle novel is connected to the others: characters from one series turn up grown up in another. These are the groups that belong together.
The Time Quintet (the Murry family)
1. A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
2. A Wind in the Door (1973)
3. A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978)
4. Many Waters (1986)
5. An Acceptable Time (1989)
Publication order works well. If you want the story in order, read Many Waters third: it takes place before A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
The O'Keefe books (Polly O'Keefe, Meg and Calvin's daughter)
1. The Arm of the Starfish (1965)
2. Dragons in the Waters (1976)
3. A House Like a Lotus (1984)
4. An Acceptable Time (1989)
The Austin family
1. Meet the Austins (1960)
2. The Moon by Night (1963)
3. The Young Unicorns (1968)
4. A Ring of Endless Light (1980)
5. Troubling a Star (1994)
Two pairs for adult readers
The Small Rain (1945), then A Severed Wasp (1982), for Katherine Forrester.
Camilla (1951), then A Live Coal in the Sea (1996), for Camilla Dickinson.
Everything Else Madeleine L'Engle Wrote: The Full List
The novels are only part of it. This is the rest of her published work, in order within each form: her journals, her books on faith and art, poetry, stories, picture books and plays. The books I would point you to first sit at the top of each form, with where to buy them. Anthologies, collaborations and small gift books are left out.
Open a form with the + to see every book in it.
Journals and memoir
4
4 books · 1972–1988
A Circle of Quiet (1972)
The first Crosswicks Journal.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage (1988)
Her marriage to Hugh Franklin, finished after his death.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
- 1974The Summer of the Great-Grandmotheron caring for her aging mother
- 1977The Irrational Seasonthe third Crosswicks Journal
Faith, art and writing
13
13 books · 1974–2001
Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (1980)
On faith, art and the creative process.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
- 1974Everyday Prayers
- 1975Prayers for Sunday
- 1979Ladder of Angels: Stories from the Bible Illustrated by Children of the World
- 1983And It Was Good: Reflections on Beginningsthe first book of her Genesis Trilogy
- 1985Trailing Clouds of Glory: Spiritual Values in Children's Literature
- 1986A Stone for a PillowGenesis Trilogy
- 1989Sold into EgyptGenesis Trilogy
- 1993The Rock That Is Higher: Story as Truth
- 1994Anytime Prayers
- 1996Penguins and Golden Calves: Icons and Idols in Antarctica and Other Spiritual Places
- 1997Bright Evening Star: Mystery of the Incarnation
- 2001Madeleine L'Engle Herself: Reflections on a Writing Lifecompiled by Carole F. Chase
Poetry
4
4 collections · 1969–2005
The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems (2005)
Nearly two hundred poems, eighteen of them published for the first time.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
Stories and short fiction
7
7 books · 1970–2020
The Moment of Tenderness (2020)
Eighteen stories, published after her death.
Amazon, Bookshop.org and more
- 1970Intergalactic P.S. 3
- 1980The Anti-Muffinsthe chapter left out of Meet the Austins
- 1982The Sphinx at Dawn: Two Stories
- 1984The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmasan Austin family story
- 1998Miracle on 10th Street and Other Christmas Writings
- 1999A Full House: An Austin Family Christmas
Picture books
3
3 books · 1969–2001
Plays
2
2 plays · 1944–1967
How Madeleine L'Engle Writes: Two Kinds of Time
Inside the cover of Many Waters (1986), L'Engle printed a family tree of her characters and split them into two kinds of time, using two Greek words. The Austin family lives in chronos, which she described as ordinary wrist-watch, alarm-clock time. The Murrys and the O'Keefes live in kairos, real time outside measurement, where tesseracts, unicorns and angels are possible. A third group of characters crosses between the two, which is why Adam Eddington works for the O'Keefes in one book and studies dolphins with Vicky Austin in another.
She never kept science and faith apart. Meg's parents are an astrophysicist and a Nobel Prize-winning microbiologist; Mrs Who quotes St Paul; a whole adventure takes place inside a mitochondrion. That mix cost her on both sides: some Christian bookshops refused to stock her books, while some secular critics found them far too religious.
And much of it came from her own life. The Murry and Austin farmhouses are both modelled on Crosswicks, her house in Connecticut. Rob Austin is based on her son, Bion, and Canon Tallis on her spiritual director at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, where she worked as librarian for decades. As she wrote in The New York Times in 1963, writers turn to fantasy when they have something important and difficult to say.
Frequently asked questions about Madeleine L'Engle's books
How many books did Madeleine L'Engle write?
Madeleine L'Engle wrote more than sixty books. They include 24 novels, four Crosswicks Journals, poetry, books on faith and art, short stories, picture books and plays. Two more books appeared after her death: the novel The Joys of Love (2008) and the story collection The Moment of Tenderness (2020).
What are Madeleine L'Engle's novels in order?
In order of publication: The Small Rain (1945), Ilsa (1946), And Both Were Young (1949), Camilla (1951), A Winter's Love (1957), Meet the Austins (1960), A Wrinkle in Time (1962), The Moon by Night (1963), The Arm of the Starfish (1965), The Love Letters (1966), The Young Unicorns (1968), The Other Side of the Sun (1971), A Wind in the Door (1973), Dragons in the Waters (1976), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), A Ring of Endless Light (1980), A Severed Wasp (1982), A House Like a Lotus (1984), Many Waters (1986), An Acceptable Time (1989), Certain Women (1992), Troubling a Star (1994), A Live Coal in the Sea (1996), The Joys of Love (2008).
What is the order of the Wrinkle in Time books?
The Time Quintet, in order of publication: A Wrinkle in Time (1962), A Wind in the Door (1973), A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978), Many Waters (1986) and An Acceptable Time (1989). Many Waters takes place before A Swiftly Tilting Planet, so read it third if you want the story in order.
Which Madeleine L'Engle book should I read first?
A Wrinkle in Time (1962). It is her best-known book and the start of the Time Quintet. If you are reading with a younger child, Meet the Austins (1960) is a gentler way in.
What order should I read the Austin family books in?
Meet the Austins (1960), The Moon by Night (1963), The Young Unicorns (1968), A Ring of Endless Light (1980) and Troubling a Star (1994). The short Christmas books The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas and A Full House take place before Meet the Austins.
What are the Polly O'Keefe books?
Four novels about Polly O'Keefe, the eldest daughter of Meg Murry and Calvin O'Keefe from A Wrinkle in Time: The Arm of the Starfish (1965), Dragons in the Waters (1976), A House Like a Lotus (1984) and An Acceptable Time (1989), which also closes the Time Quintet.
Did Madeleine L'Engle write books for adults?
Yes. Her novels for adults include The Small Rain (1945), Ilsa (1946), A Winter's Love (1957), The Love Letters (1966), The Other Side of the Sun (1971), A Severed Wasp (1982), Certain Women (1992) and A Live Coal in the Sea (1996). She also wrote four volumes of journals, the Crosswicks Journals, and books on faith and art such as Walking on Water (1980).
What are the Crosswicks Journals?
Four autobiographical books named after Crosswicks, her farmhouse in Connecticut: A Circle of Quiet (1972), The Summer of the Great-Grandmother (1974), about caring for her mother, The Irrational Season (1977) and Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage (1988), which she finished after her husband's death.
What do chronos and kairos mean in Madeleine L'Engle's books?
They are two Greek words for time that L'Engle used to sort her characters, in a family tree printed inside Many Waters. The Austin books take place in chronos, ordinary clock time, and are mostly realistic. The Murry and O'Keefe books take place in kairos, time outside measurement, where time travel and angels are possible.
Was A Wrinkle in Time rejected by publishers?
Yes. L'Engle finished the book by 1960 and it was turned down by more than two dozen publishers before Farrar, Straus and Giroux published it in 1962. It won the Newbery Medal the following year.
Is A Wrinkle in Time a Christian book?
L'Engle was an Episcopalian, and the book borrows openly from the Bible: Mrs Who quotes St Paul and creatures on another planet sing a psalm. But she mixed faith with science and fantasy in ways that divided readers. Some Christian bookshops refused to carry her books, while some secular critics thought them too religious.
Which films are based on Madeleine L'Engle's books?
A Wrinkle in Time was made into a television film in 2003 and a cinema film directed by Ava DuVernay in 2018. A Ring of Endless Light was filmed for the Disney Channel, and Camilla Dickinson became a film that premiered in 2012.
What was Madeleine L'Engle's last book?
The last novel published in her lifetime was A Live Coal in the Sea (1996). After her death in 2007, her family published the novel The Joys of Love (2008), which she wrote in the 1940s, and the story collection The Moment of Tenderness (2020).
Who was Madeleine L'Engle?
Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) was an American writer of novels, poetry and nonfiction, born in New York City. She is best known for A Wrinkle in Time, which won the 1963 Newbery Medal. She was married to the actor Hugh Franklin, lived partly at Crosswicks in Connecticut, and was librarian and writer-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York.
Footnotes
- About Madeleine L'Engle — madeleinelengle.com (official website)
- Madeleine L'Engle — Wikipedia
- Madeleine L'Engle — Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Time Quintet — Wikipedia
- Major characters in the works of Madeleine L'Engle — Wikipedia
- Vicky Austin — Wikipedia
- Dragons in the Waters — Wikipedia
- A House Like a Lotus — Wikipedia
- Ilsa — Wikipedia
- A Winter's Love — madeleinelengle.com
- A Severed Wasp — madeleinelengle.com
- A Live Coal in the Sea — Kirkus Reviews
- The Joys of Love — Macmillan
Bibliography last verified 10 September 2026.
Nothing here was suggested by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all hers.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“A book, too, can be a star, explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”
— Madeleine L'Engle, Newbery Medal acceptance speech, 1963
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