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[CCBC-Net] Addendum to the WRINKLE IN TIME discussion
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From: Jcgiblin at aol.com <Jcgiblin>
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:16:27 EDT
When A WRINKLE IN TIME won the Newbery, I was working at Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. as associate editor. My boss was Beatrice Creighton, Lothrop's longtime editor-in-chief, and a children's book pioneer in her own quiet way. She was the editor of Roger Duvoisin's Caldecott-winning picture book WHITE SNOW, BRIGHT SNOW, written by Alvin Tresselt, and Duvoisin's later Caldecott Honor, HIDE-AND-SEEK FOG, also by Tresselt. Bea also published ONE GOD: The Ways We Worship Him, an innovative photo essay by Florence Fitch that compared the religious practices of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews -- a forward-looking approach back in 1947.
Miss Creighton was also the editor of Madeleine L'Engle's first book for young people, the teenage novel AND BOTH WERE YOUNG, about a schoolgirl crush in a Swiss boarding school. According to Bea, L'Engle had intended it to be an adult novel, but her editor at Vanguard Press (which had published L'Engle's THE SMALL RAIN, I believe) felt the new manuscript would be better suited for publication as a novel for teenagers. He suggested L'Engle show it to his friend Beatrice Creighton at Lothrop, and Bea signed it up. I'm not sure when it was published -- sometime in the 1950s, I think; I do know it got good reviews, and was still in print and selling nicely when I worked at Lothrop in the early 1960s. I've often wondered why L'Engle rarely if ever included it in the list of children's books she'd written.
Maybe it was because Beatrice Creighton was one of the 28 or 29 editors who turned down A WRINKLE IN TIME. Over a lunch one day, shortly after WRINKLE won the Newbery, a not-so-regretful Miss Creighton told me why she'd declined the story, which she said had a different title when she saw it: MRS. WHO, MRS. WHATZIT, AND MRS. WHICH. I remember quite clearly the gist of what she told me. It went like this: "Madeleine writes wonderfully well, but I just couldn't go along with all the religion business. I thought it got in the way of the story. But I knew Madeleine wouldn't consider any revisions -- so I said
"No." (She was sipping a glass of wine as she spoke.) "I'm sure I've cost Crown (Lothrop's owner then) a lot of money. But I'm really not sorry; I wouldn't have enjoyed working on that story."
A footnote: Beatrice Creighton was the daughter of a minister -- I believe a Methodist minister.
Jim Giblin
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Received on Fri 25 Jul 2008 10:16:27 AM CDT
Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:16:27 EDT
When A WRINKLE IN TIME won the Newbery, I was working at Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co. as associate editor. My boss was Beatrice Creighton, Lothrop's longtime editor-in-chief, and a children's book pioneer in her own quiet way. She was the editor of Roger Duvoisin's Caldecott-winning picture book WHITE SNOW, BRIGHT SNOW, written by Alvin Tresselt, and Duvoisin's later Caldecott Honor, HIDE-AND-SEEK FOG, also by Tresselt. Bea also published ONE GOD: The Ways We Worship Him, an innovative photo essay by Florence Fitch that compared the religious practices of Protestants, Catholics, and Jews -- a forward-looking approach back in 1947.
Miss Creighton was also the editor of Madeleine L'Engle's first book for young people, the teenage novel AND BOTH WERE YOUNG, about a schoolgirl crush in a Swiss boarding school. According to Bea, L'Engle had intended it to be an adult novel, but her editor at Vanguard Press (which had published L'Engle's THE SMALL RAIN, I believe) felt the new manuscript would be better suited for publication as a novel for teenagers. He suggested L'Engle show it to his friend Beatrice Creighton at Lothrop, and Bea signed it up. I'm not sure when it was published -- sometime in the 1950s, I think; I do know it got good reviews, and was still in print and selling nicely when I worked at Lothrop in the early 1960s. I've often wondered why L'Engle rarely if ever included it in the list of children's books she'd written.
Maybe it was because Beatrice Creighton was one of the 28 or 29 editors who turned down A WRINKLE IN TIME. Over a lunch one day, shortly after WRINKLE won the Newbery, a not-so-regretful Miss Creighton told me why she'd declined the story, which she said had a different title when she saw it: MRS. WHO, MRS. WHATZIT, AND MRS. WHICH. I remember quite clearly the gist of what she told me. It went like this: "Madeleine writes wonderfully well, but I just couldn't go along with all the religion business. I thought it got in the way of the story. But I knew Madeleine wouldn't consider any revisions -- so I said
"No." (She was sipping a glass of wine as she spoke.) "I'm sure I've cost Crown (Lothrop's owner then) a lot of money. But I'm really not sorry; I wouldn't have enjoyed working on that story."
A footnote: Beatrice Creighton was the daughter of a minister -- I believe a Methodist minister.
Jim Giblin
************** Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today.
(http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020)
Received on Fri 25 Jul 2008 10:16:27 AM CDT
