And Both Were Young
Cover of the 1949 edition
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| Author | Madeleine L'Engle |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Young Adult |
| Publisher | Lothrop, Lee & Shepard |
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Publication date
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1949 (original edition) 1983 (reissued edition with additional material) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback, Paperback) |
| Pages | 240 pages (Hardback) |
| ISBN | |
And Both Were Young is a novel by Madeleine L'Engle originally published in 1949. It tells the story of an American girl at boarding school in Switzerland, not long after World War II, and the relationship she develops with a French boy she meets there, who cannot remember his past due to trauma he suffered in the war.
In 1983, a revised version of the novel that restored material originally removed by the author was published under the same title, but with a new copyright.
In the late 1940s, Connecticut teenager Philippa "Flip" Hunter is sent to boarding school in Switzerland after recovering from a knee injury sustained in an automobile accident that also killed her mother. Her father Philip Hunter, an illustrator of children's books, is planning to travel around Europe making sketches for a book on lost children, and he is also being romantically pursued by the beautiful Eunice Jackman, whom Flip dislikes, partly because Eunice suggested the boarding school. Although Flip really wants to stay with her father, he thinks it would be better for her to be in the school where she can meet more young people and he can easily visit her at Christmas and Easter. Upon arrival at the school, Flip happens to meet a local boy named Paul Laurens, in whom she confides some of her unhappiness with Eunice and with being separated from her father.
After her father and Eunice leave, Flip has trouble fitting in at the school. She misses her father and her home, is still mourning her mother, performs poorly at school athletics due to her knee injury, and does not easily make friends with her sophisticated classmates, many of whom also come from dysfunctional family backgrounds. Her classmates mock her and give her the derisive nickname "Pill". In an effort to get some private time, she visits the school chapel, but this gets her reprimanded by the administrator and laughed at by the other girls, She resorts to going for illicit walks off the school grounds, discovers that Paul lives nearby with his father, and the two make friends and begin to meet regularly. After a hazing ritual in which Flip is physically abused by the other girls and then left blindfolded, gagged and tied to a tree in the woods, she is rescued by the art teacher, Madame Perceval. Madame Perceval also finds out about Flip's secret meetings with Paul, who turns out to be her nephew, and arranges things so that Flip can visit Paul at her home and not have to break school rules. Flip learns that Paul is a war orphan who was rescued by Madame Perceval's brother-in-law and that he has lost his memory of his past due to trauma he suffered in a concentration camp. Their growing relationship is therapeutic for them both.
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