Madeleine L’Engle Bibliography: Fiction

Flip doesn’t think she’ll ever fit in at the Swiss boarding school. Besides being homesick for her father and Connecticut, she isn’t sophisticated like the other girls, and discussions about boys leave her tongue-tied. Her happiest times are spent apart from the others, sketching or wandering in the mountains.

But the day she’s out walking alone and meets a French boy, Paul, things change for Flip. As their relationship grows, so does her self-confidence. Despite her newfound happiness, there are times when Paul seems a stranger to her. And since dating is forbidden except to seniors, their romance must remain a secret. With so many new feelings and obstacles to overcome in her present, can Flip help Paul to confront his troubled past and find a future?

Life had always been easy for fifteen-year-old Camilla Dickinson. But now her parents, whom she had always loved and trusted, are behaving like strangers to each other and vying for her allegiance. Camilla is torn between her love for them and her disapproval of their actions.

Then she meets Frank, her best friend’s brother, who helps her to feel that she is not alone. Can Camilla learn to accept her parents for what they are and step toward her own independence?

Emma Wheaton has interrupted her successful stage career to attend to her dying father—the legedary screen actor David Wheaton. As the master performer grapples with an obsession over the one great role that has eluded him—that of the biblical King David—Emma confronts both the painful and healing memories of her tumultuous past. The stories of these two Davids and the women in thier lives are simultaneously woven together and unraveled in a narrative rich in theatrical tradition and archetypal wisdom. In Certain Women, Madeleine L’Engle gives us an unforgettable portrait of the private struggles and blessings of family life.

This is the story of Jonahthe Prophet who was, as we have all heard, swallowed by a whale. How this came to be, what it was like in the whales belly, and what befell jonah after he was safely coughed up make a comic yet moving tale.

Ms. L’Engle has peopled the story of Jonah’s adventures with a lively cast of busybodies, chatterers, and givers-of-unwanted-advice, and Leonard Everett Fisher has brought them alive to our eyes in clear black and white drawings.

Turn to the first page of this book and start to read: “Once upon a time when the earth was younger and time was slower and it took three days to cross from one end to the other of Nineveh, that great city…” and you will soon be lost in the wonderful world of Jonah.

During the summer of 1946, twenty-year-old Elizabeth is doing what she has dreamed of since she was a little girl: working in the theatre. Elizabeth is passionate about her work and determined to learn all she can at the summer theatre company on the sea where she is an apprentice actress. She’s never felt so alive. And soon she finds another passion: Kurt Canitz, the dashing young director of the company, and the first man Elizabeth’s ever kissed who has really meant something to her. Then Elizabeth’s perfect summer is profoundly shaken when Kurt turns out not to be the kind of man she thought he was.

Moving and romantic, this coming-of-age story was written during the 1940s. As revealed in an introduction by the author’s granddaughter Léna Roy, the protagonist Elizabeth is close to an autobiographical portrait of L’Engle herself as a young woman—vibrant, vulnerable, and yearning for love and all that life has to offer.

Touché L’Engle Franklin is confused: Her mistress goes away for several days – and then returns with another dog. But this dog doeasn’t have a tail. She doesn’t have much hair. And she never has to go outside when it’s raining. What on earth could the family want with that inferior breed known as Baby?

Based on the true tale of her own poodle’s experience coping with a new baby in the house, Newbery-award winning author Madeleine L’Engle gives this familiar domestic drama an utterly charming new twist. Tongue-in-cheek wit, endearing illustrations, and a revealing author’s note make this a publishing event to celebrate.

Check out the back to see Madeleine’s own illustrations from her original manuscript!

Katherine Forrester Vigneras, in a continuation of her story from The Small Rain, returns to new York City from Europe to retire. Now in her seventies, she encounters an old friend from her Greenwich Village days who, it turns out, is the former Bishop of New York. He asks Katherine to give a benefit concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. This leads to new demands on her resources—human, artistic, psychological, and spiritual—that are entirely unexpected.

Ten-year-old Katherine Forrester has not seen her mother, Julie, for three years, since the automobile accident that tragically cut short her mother’s career as a pianist. The Small Rain begins with their reunion and life together before Julie dies. Katherine is then sent to boarding school in Switzerland by her composer father and his new wife, the renowned actress Madame Sergeivna, who cared for Kathrine after her mother’s accident. Katherine hates the pettiness and stifling routine of school, which is relieved only by her piano lessons with a gifted young teacher, Justin Vigneras.

At the end of her junior year, Katherine vacations in Thonon, France, and there falls in love with a young friend of the family, Charles Bejart. Their short romance brings them a recognition of their real feelings for one another—what is, in fact, the basis of a lifelong friendship. When she graduates, Katherine returns to New York, where she sets up an apartment and becomes the protege of a great master who once taught her mother. Relishing life on her own in Greenwich Village, Katherine is suddenly forced to choose between the man she is engaged to and her beloved music.

The story of Katherine Forrester’s development from a troubled child to a mature and talented woman is told with the scope and poignancy that have become Madeleine L’Engle’s hallmarks. Originally published in 1945, The Small Rain is Madeleine L’Engles first novel. A Severed Wasp continues the story of Katherine’s life as an older woman.