L’ENGLE, Madeleine (1918-2007). A Wrinkle in Time. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1962.

Signed first edition of A Wrinkle in Time: a much-loved work of young adult science fantasy.

‘I cannot possibly tell you how I came to write it. It was simply a book I had to write. I had no choice. It was only after it was written that I realized what some of it meant’ (L’Engle).

A Wrinkle in Time blends science fiction and fantasy in a way that was groundbreaking for its time. Concerning an emotional and supernatural journey through the universe by means of a tesseract, the novel won the Newbery Medal, the Sequoyah Book Award, and the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and was a runner-up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award. The book faced numerous rejections before finding a publisher, but its ultimate success led to various adaptations, including a television film and a major motion picture. Characters such as Meg Murry and Charles Wallace, and concepts like the tesseract, have since become widely known. Signed by the author on the title page, this copy is also accompanied by a signed black-and-white photograph of the author, loosely inserted.

Octavo. Publisher’s cloth-backed boards, spine lettered in gilt (faintest fading at spine ends); original first-issue dust-jacket (price-clipped, extremities lightly rubbed, lower panel faintly soiled, 25mm closed tear at foot of upper joint, 2 small marks to upper panel). Provenance: gift inscription dated 1963 and subsequent ownership inscription.