18 Washington Square, South

Boston: Walter H. Baker Company, 1944. 1st Edition. 12mo., [3], 51, [5]pp., photograph frontis, ads. Original brown, saddle stitched wrappers, printed in red. Very good with some pencil markings to front cover, including a doodle of a monkey. Ownership signature of Leo Nickole, longtime performing arts professor and founder of the musical theater program at Emerson College in Boston to front cover. Light separation at front hinge, and a couple markings in the text else clean internally. Very Good. Madeleine L'Engle's first book published as a Baker's Royalty Play in 1944. This one act comedy for the stage preceded her first novel, A Small Rain, which was published in 1945. At the time, L'Engle was in the midst of her acting career in New York City, and used her off time, or even time in the wings, to write her first novel. A year later, she would meet her future husband, actor Hugh Franklin, in a production of The Cherry Orchard by Eva LeGallienne. L'Engle would continue her writing after the couple moved to Connecticut in 1952, though she vowed to give it up entirely after a series of rejections in 1958. Then, in 1962 A Wrinkle In Time was published, launching her career and cementing her legacy as one of the great children's authors of the 20th century.

This scarce publication is shown by OCLC to be held by just four institutions in the US. 12mo - over 6¾ - 7¾" tall.