Madeleine L'Engle - Early Life

Early Life

Madeleine L'Engle Camp was born in New York City on November 29, 1918 and named after her great-grandmother, Madeleine L'Engle, otherwise known as Mado. Her maternal grandfather was Florida banker Bion Barnett, co-founder of Barnett Bank in Jacksonville, Florida. Her mother, a pianist, was also named Madeleine. Her father, Charles Wadsworth Camp, was a writer, a critic, and a foreign correspondent who, according to his daughter, suffered lung damage from exposure to mustard gas during World War I. (In a 2004 New Yorker profile of the writer, relatives of L'Engle disputed the mustard gas story, claiming instead that Camp's illness was caused by alcoholism.)

L'Engle wrote her first story at age five and began keeping a journal at age eight. These early literary attempts did not translate into academic success at the New York City private school where she was enrolled. A shy, clumsy child, she was branded as stupid by some of her teachers. Unable to please them, she retreated into her own world of books and writing. Her parents often disagreed about how to raise her, and as a result she attended a number of boarding schools and had many governesses. The L'Engles traveled frequently. At one point, the family moved to a chateau near Chamonix in the French Alps, in what Madeleine described as the hope that the cleaner air would be easier on her father's lungs. Madeleine was sent to a boarding school in Switzerland. However, in 1933, L'Engle's grandmother fell ill, and they moved near Jacksonville, Florida to be close to her. L'Engle attended another boarding school, Ashley Hall, in Charleston, South Carolina. When her father died in 1935, Madeleine arrived home too late to say goodbye.