Time Quintet
#3683.98 of 664 ranked universes · full ranking
Books 5 books Status Complete 1962–1989 Reading commitment Medium Madeleine L'Engle Last reviewed 2026-09-05
Overview
The five-book Time Quintet begins with A Wrinkle in Time (1962), following siblings Meg and Charles Wallace Murry and their friend Calvin O'Keefe as they travel across the universe with the help of three mysterious, ancient beings to rescue the Murry children's missing father from an evil, controlling intelligence. The sequels follow the Murry family across further journeys through time and space, battling darkness on both a cosmic and a deeply personal scale.
This is a genre-boundary admission: critical and cataloguing consensus consistently labels the series "science fantasy", blending scientific ideas (the tesseract, relativity, quantum theory) with overtly mythic and religious material — former stars taking on angelic guise, and a literal struggle against a disembodied evil mind. It is consistently shelved and marketed as children's/YA fantasy alongside other portal fantasies, which is why it is admitted here on the same footing as this project's other genre-boundary cases.
Portal fantasy, Mythic fantasy · For Middle grade
Core Canon: Reading Order (5 works) counts toward ranking
Time Quintet Madeleine L'Engle
| Work | Year | Internal chron. | Canon | Rating | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | A Wrinkle in Time | 1962 | 1 | core | 3.97 (1,310,354 ratings) |
| A Wind in the Door | 1973 | 2 | core | 3.98 (134,143 ratings) | |
| A Swiftly Tilting Planet | 1978 | 3 | core | 4.07 (112,811 ratings) | |
| Many Waters | 1986 | 4 | core | 3.95 (51,062 ratings) | |
| An Acceptable Time | 1989 | 5 | core | N/A |
The five-book Time Quintet: A Wrinkle in Time and its direct sequels, following the Murry and O'Keefe children across cosmic/time travel adventures. This project treats the whole quintet as Core Canon; L'Engle's separately-continuitied O'Keefe family novels (e.g. The Arm of the Starfish, Dragons in the Waters), which share some characters but are spy/thriller fiction rather than fantasy, are out of scope and not catalogued here.
Quick answers
- How many books are in Time Quintet? Time Quintet's Core Canon is 5 books.
- What is the reading order for Time Quintet? Publication order, starting with A Wrinkle in Time. Full list and years in the Core Canon table above.
- Is Time Quintet finished? Complete (1962–1989).
- How much reading does Time Quintet take? Medium reading commitment (estimated from 5 Core Canon books · ~1,084 pages).
- How is Time Quintet ranked? #368 of 664 ranked universes on this site, based on 1,608,370 reader ratings across 4 Core Canon books. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #368?
Ranked #368 of 664 ranked universes.
- Average reader rating of 3.98 across 4 core books.
- Backed by 1.6M reader ratings.
- Remarkably consistent across the whole series: all 4 rated core books rate within 0.12 of each other.
- Less than 0.01 behind #367, His Fair Assassin (a finer tie-break level decides the order).
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
One Core Canon book here doesn't have a recorded rating yet and isn't counted above: “An Acceptable Time” (awaiting ordinary reader-rating data collection. It will be folded back into this universe's ranking once its rating is recorded.).
Why explore this universe?
Well rated · 5 books · Complete · 1.6M ratings · Ranks #368 overall
Good choice if you want a moderate-length portal fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
Publication order (5 Core Canon books)
- A Wrinkle in Time (1962)
- A Wind in the Door (1973)
- A Swiftly Tilting Planet (1978)
- Many Waters (1986)
- An Acceptable Time (1989)
Documented internal/story chronology is recorded for every Core Canon book here, and matches publication order exactly, with no divergence to show separately.
Awards (verified)
- Newbery Medal, 1963: won: A Wrinkle in Time
You might also like
Suggestions computed from what Time Quintet and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.
- The Book of Wirrun Mythic fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 4.07
- Magisterium Portal fantasy / Epic fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 4.03
- Fairyland Portal fantasy / Fairy-tale retelling · Complete · Medium commitment · 4.02
- Inkheart Portal fantasy · Complete · Medium commitment · 3.94
Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.98 across 1,608,370 ratings on 4 Core Canon books. 1 additional Core Canon book hasn't been rated yet, so it isn't counted here. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: A Wrinkle in Time (Time Quintet) admitted; genre-boundary case resolved in favor of admission accepted 2026-09-05
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
Last reviewed: 2026-09-05
Rule: Core Canon is all five novels of the Time Quintet. Madeleine L'Engle's separately-continuitied O'Keefe family novels (e.g. The Arm of the Starfish, Dragons in the Waters), which share some characters but are spy/thriller fiction rather than fantasy, are out of scope and not catalogued here.