<P> A Wrinkle in Time is a science fantasy novel written by American writer Madeleine L'Engle, first published in 1962 . The book won the Newbery Medal, Sequoyah Book Award, and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, and was runner - up for the Hans Christian Andersen Award . It is the first book in L'Engle's Time Quintet, which follows the Murrys and Calvin O'Keefe . </P> <P> The book spawned two film adaptations, both by Disney: a 2003 television film directed by John Kent Harrison, and a 2018 theatrical film directed by Ava DuVernay . </P> <P> The book was written between 1959 and 1960 . L'Engle wrote repeatedly about the writing of the story and the long struggle to get it published . In A Circle of Quiet (1972), she explains that the book was conceived "during a time of transition ." After years of living in rural Goshen, Connecticut, and running a general store, L'Engle's family, the Franklins, moved back to New York City, first taking a ten - week camping trip across the country and back again . L'Engle writes that "we drove through a world of deserts and buttes and leafless mountains, wholly new and alien to me . And suddenly into my mind came the names, Mrs Whatsit . Mrs Who . Mrs Which ." This was in the spring of 1959 . L'Engle was reading about quantum physics at the time, which also made its way into the story . When she completed the book in early 1960, however, it was rejected by at least 26 publishers, because it was, in L'Engle's words, "too different," and "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was really difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adults' book, anyhow?" </P> <P> In "A Special Message from Madeleine L'Engle" on the Random House website, L'Engle explains another possible reason for the rejections: "A Wrinkle in Time had a female protagonist in a science fiction book," which at the time was uncommon . After trying "forty - odd" publishers (L'Engle later said "twenty - six rejections"), L'Engle's agent returned the manuscript to her . Then at Christmas, L'Engle threw a tea party for her mother . One of the guests happened to know John C. Farrar of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and insisted that L'Engle should meet with him . Although the publisher did not, at the time, publish a line of children's books, Farrar met L'Engle, liked the novel, and ultimately published it . </P>

When was the book a wrinkle in time written