Book 1

A Circle of Quiet

by Madeleine L'Engle

Published 31 December 1972
The beloved author of A Wrinkle in Time takes an introspective look at her life and muses on creativity in this memoir, the first of her Crosswicks Journals.

Every so often I need OUT. . . . My special place is a small brook in a green glade, a circle of quiet from which there is no visible sign of human beings. . . . I sit there, dangling my legs and looking through the foliage at the sky reflected in the water, and things slowly come back into perspective.

Set against the lush backdrop of Crosswicks, her family's farmhouse in rural Connecticut, this deeply personal memoir details Madeleine L'Engle's journey to find balance between her career as a Newbery Medal-winning author and her responsibilities as a wife, mother, teacher, and Christian.

As she considers the roles that creativity, family, citizenship, and faith play in her life, L'Engle reveals the complexities behind the author whose works-honored with the National Book Award, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and countless other prizes-have long been cherished by children and adults alike. Written in simple, profound, and often humorous prose, A Circle of Quiet is an insightful woman's elegant search for the meaning and purpose of her life.

This ebook features an illustrated biography of Madeleine L'Engle including rare images from the author's estate.


Book 3

The Irrational Season

by Madeleine L'Engle

Published 1 January 1983

Book 4

Two-Part Invention

by Madeleine L'Engle

Published 1 October 1988
In the final memoir of her Crosswicks Journals, the author of A Wrinkle in Time paints an intimate portrait of her forty-year marriage.

A long-term marriage has to move beyond chemistry to compatibility, to friendship, to companionship.
 
As Newbery Medal winner Madeleine L’Engle describes a relationship characterized by compassion, respect, and growth, as well as challenge and conflict, she beautifully evokes the life she and her husband, actor Hugh Franklin, built and the family they cherished.
 
Beginning with their very different childhoods, L’Engle chronicles the twists and turns that led two young artists to New York City in the 1940s, where they were both pursuing careers in theater. While working on a production of Anton Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, they sparked a connection that would endure until Franklin’s death in 1986. L’Engle recalls years spent raising their children at Crosswicks, the Connecticut farmhouse that became an icon of family, and the support she and her husband drew from each other as artists struggling—separately and together—to find both professional and personal fulfillment.
 
At once heartfelt and heartbreaking, Two-Part Invention is L’Engle’s most personal work—the revelation of a marriage and the exploration of intertwined lives inevitably marked by love and loss.