L'Engle was an only child (her only brother died as an infant) brought up in the formal English tradition her father wished, with a nanny and governess. Because of the rather solitary childhood, she developed a great love of reading, writing stories, and drawing. Her father had been gassed in World War I; as his physical health deteriorated, his professional work also suffered. His lungs became so afflicted that he could no longer live in New York or any of the other cosmopolitan cities he loved. The family moved to Switzerland, and L'Engle went to the first of a series of boarding schools both in Europe and in the United States. L'Engle graduated from Smith College with honors in 1941 and pursued a career in the theater for the next five years, because she thought it would be good schooling for a writer. Both the boarding schools and theatrical experience provide the dramatic backdrop for L'Engle's first book, The Small Rain (1945).
The Small Rain deals with one of L'Engle's predominant themes: that an artist must constantly discipline herself; otherwise her talent will become dissipated and she will never achieve her greatest potential.
This is a free page. This page contains 191 words. This
biography contains 5,414 words (approx. 18 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Madeleine (Camp Franklin) L'Engle Access Pass.
