 Spines of the first four books in theTime Quintet in their originalhardbackdust jackets | |
A Wrinkle in Time A Wind in the Door A Swiftly Tilting Planet Many Waters The Arm of the Starfish Dragons in the Waters A House Like a Lotus An Acceptable Time | |
| Author | Madeleine L'Engle |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Young adult,science fantasy |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Published | 1962 – 1989 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback &Paperback) |
TheTime Quintet is afantasy/science fiction series of fiveyoung adult novels written byMadeleine L'Engle.
The series originated withA Wrinkle in Time, written from 1959 to 1960 and turned down by 26 publishers beforeFarrar, Straus and Giroux finally published it in1962.A Wrinkle in Time won theNewbery Medal and has sold over 6 million copies. The sequel,A Wind in the Door, takes place the following year but was published over a decade later, in1973.A Swiftly Tilting Planet, set ten years afterA Wrinkle in Time, followed in1978. The fourth title of the quintet,Many Waters, was published in1986, but takes place several years beforeA Swiftly Tilting Planet. This is readily apparent from the fact thatSandy and Dennys Murry are in high school as ofMany Waters, but refer to their college studies at the time ofA Swiftly Tilting Planet; and from Meg's unmarried status as ofMany Waters. The final title in the series isAn Acceptable Time, published in1989.
All five titles have been published in numerous editions over the years, with occasional changes incover art and, in 1997, a new introduction by L'Engle for the Dell Laurel-Leaf paperbacks. The books have also been packaged as abox set, first (before the publication ofMany Waters) as the Time Trilogy, next as the Time Quartet, and finally in its entirety as the Time Quintet.
In May 2007, the books were reissued under the Square Fish imprint in both mass market and trade paperback form. Both editions include new cover art, "An Appreciation byAnna Quindlen", a "Questions for the Author" interview, and the text of Madeleine L'Engle's Newbery Medal acceptance speech, published under the title "The Expanding Universe".
This series follows the lives ofMeg Murry, her youngest brotherCharles Wallace Murry, and their friendCalvin O'Keefe as they try to save the world from evil forces. The remaining Murry siblings, twinsSandy and Dennys Murry, take up the struggle in one volume from which the other protagonists are largely absent. A further book aboutPolyhymnia O'Keefe, the eldest child of Meg and Calvin, features several characters from the other novels and completes the Time Quintet.
A Wrinkle in Time is the story of Meg Murry, a middle-school-aged girl who is transported on an adventure through time and space with her younger brother Charles Wallace, her friend Calvin O'Keefe and three mystical beings called Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which. They help them to rescue her father, a gifted scientist, from the evil forces that hold him prisoner on another planet.
Meg, Calvin and the disagreeable school principal Mr. Jenkins have to travel inside one of Charles Wallace'smitochondria to save him from a deadly disease, part of a cosmic battle against the evilEchthroi and the forces of "Unnaming".
Charles Wallace must save the world from nuclear war by going back in time and changing might-have-beens, accompanied in spirit (throughkything) by Meg at home.
Twins Dennys and Sandy accidentally play around with their father's computer, sending them into Mr. Murry's experiment and back in time to the pre-flood days of Noah. They befriend his family, a group of seraphim, and some miniature mammoths.
Meg and Calvin's eldest daughter,Polyhymnia O'Keefe, visits her maternal grandparents only to find herself trapped 3,000 years in the past, caught up in a struggle between the People of the Wind and the warlike,drought-stricken People Across the Lake.
The exact time period is never given, but the stories seem to take place in the 1960s and 70s. Since the series was written over the course of decades, it is not possible to establish an exact year in which each story takes place; historical events mentioned in the books (such as the dates of theApollo space program and the name of thePresident of the United States) do not always correspond to the "real world". In recognition of this, and of the cosmic nature of the series, the inside front cover ofMany Waters states that the series is set inKairos, a way of looking at time as "real time, pure numbers with no measurement",[1] reflecting her belief that "God's time and our time are not the same".[2]
Each of the books contains one or more instances of "tessering" (foldingspacetime), carrying the protagonists to metaphysical battlegrounds in the cosmic struggle between good and evil. The eponymous "wrinkle in time" is a short hop to the immediate past engineered by the Mrs. Ws to allow Meg, Calvin and Charles Wallace to accomplish their mission and return before they are missed at home. InA Wind in the Door, Proginoskes takes Meg to "yesterday" to show her theEchthroi destroying a patch of stars. Charles Wallace spends most ofA Swiftly Tilting Planet "Within" the bodies and minds of people from the past, traveling there by a winged unicorn.Many Waters finds Sandy and Dennys stranded in the time of Noah after using their father's computer while an experiment is in progress.
The world of L'Engle's characters is filled withfictional place names, often taken from mythological figures that relate symbolically to the locale. For example, the planet Ixchel inA Wrinkle in Time, where Meg is cared for by a motherly sightless creature with tentacles, is named forIxchel, a Mayan moon goddess. Other, more mundane locations are often fictionalized versions of places L'Engle has lived or visited in the real world, such as L'Engle's Connecticut home, which strongly resembles that of the Murry family.[3]
The main characters (protagonists) in theTime Quintet are:
TheTime Quintet shows themes of love, loss, friendship, loneliness and the triumph of good over evil. L'Engle often borrows elements from theBible in a way similar toC. S. Lewis, one of her favorite authors. InA Wrinkle in Time, for example, the beautiful creatures of Uriel sing apsalm, and Mrs. Who quotesSt. Paul; and angelic characters — the three "Mrs. Ws", the "singular cherubim" Proginoskes, and the seraph Adnarel (who aids just Sandy and Dennys, in “Many Waters”), among others — aid the Murrys and Calvin, but still leave the humans to make their own difficult choices. Another theme which echoes Lewis's work is that phenomena which human perception classifies as "science", "religion" and "magic" are in actuality part of a single seamless reality.
L'Engle has written four books featuring the children of Calvin and Meg O'Keefe, especially their eldest daughter,Polyhymnia O'Keefe, and their eldest son, Charles. These are, in order of both publication and character chronology:
These also take place in a Kairos framework, although onlyThe Arm of the Starfish andAn Acceptable Time have the characteristic science fantasy elements to any great extent. Taken together, the eight books are called the "Murry–O'Keefe" series. The O'Keefe books further connect, through such characters asAdam Eddington,Canon Tallis andZachary Gray, to theAustin family series of books, which take place primarily in "chronos" (or "ordinary, wrist-watch" time).[1] Further overlaps between characters connect virtually every L'Engle novel into one large series of books.
In 2003,A Wrinkle in Time was adapted into atelevision movie byDisney.
A 2018film adaptation ofA Wrinkle in Time directed byAva DuVernay was released byWalt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.