Barbara Newhall Follett

Barbara Newhall Follett[1] (March 4, 1914[2] – disappeared December 7, 1939) was an American child prodigy novelist.[3] Her first novel, The House Without Windows, was published in January 1927, when she was twelve years old. Her next novel, The Voyage of the Norman D., received critical acclaim when she was fourteen.[3]

Not to be confused with Barbara Follett (politician).
Barbara Newhall Follett
Born(1914-03-04)March 4, 1914
Hanover, New Hampshire, U.S.
DisappearedDecember 7, 1939 (aged 25)
Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Other namesBarbara Rogers
OccupationNovelist
Notable work
The House Without Windows (1927)
The Voyage of the Norman D. (1928)
Spouse(s)
Nickerson Rogers
​
​
(m. 1933⁠–⁠1939)​
Parent(s)Wilson Follett
Helen Follett

In December 1939, aged 25, Follett reportedly became depressed with her marriage and walked out of her apartment, never to be seen again.[4]

Early life

Barbara Newhall Follett was born in Hanover, New Hampshire, on 4 March 1914 to Wilson Follett, a literary editor, critic and university lecturer and children's writer, Helen Thomas Follett. She had an elder half-sister, named Grace, from her father's first marriage, as well as a younger sister, Sabra Follett, later Sabra Follett Meservey — the first woman to be admitted as a graduate student to Princeton University, in 1961.[5] Schooled at home by her mother, Barbara showed an early aptitude for reading and writing, as she began to write her own poetry by the age of four.[4] Barbara was an imaginative and intelligent child: by age seven she had begun to put to paper her own imaginary world, Farksolia, and to develop its language, Farksoo.[6] Somewhat a child of nature, Barbara's stories and poems often dealt with the natural world and the wilderness.

Career

In 1923, when Follett was only eight years old, she began writing The Adventures of Eepersip, later titled The House Without Windows, as a birthday present for her mother using a small portable typewriter she had been given. The story concerned a young girl, named Eepersip, who runs away from home and family to live happily in nature, complete with animal friends.[6] Though later that year her manuscript burned in a house fire, Follett rewrote the entire story and her father, an editor at the Knopf publishing house, supervised its publication in 1927. With the help and guidance of Follett's father, The House Without Windows was accepted and published in 1927 by Knopf to critical acclaim by The New York Times, the Saturday Review, and H. L. Mencken.[3][4] Due to this early success, Barbara was hailed by some as a child genius. Her opinion was sought out radio stations and asked to review other children's books, for example Now We Are Six by British author, A. A. Milne.[7]

Follett's next novel, The Voyage of the Norman D., was based on her experience on a coastal schooner in Nova Scotia. It was published a year later in 1928, also receiving critical acclaim in many literary publications.

However, in the same year, Follett's father abandoned her mother for another woman. The event was a devastating blow to Follett, who was deeply attached to her father.[3] Aged 14, she had reached the apex of her life and career.[3][4]

My dreams are going through their death flurries. They are dying before the steel javelins and arrows of a world of Time and Money.[8]

Subsequently, her family fell upon hard times. By the age of 16, as the Great Depression was deepening, Follett was working as a secretary in New York City.[3] She wrote several more manuscripts, including the novel-length Lost Island and Travels Without a Donkey, a travelogue (the title plays on Robert Louis Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey).

Marriage

In the summer of 1931, Follett met Nickerson Rogers. The couple spent the summer of 1932 walking the Appalachian Trail from Katahdin to the Massachusetts border, then sailed to Spain where they continued their walking excursions in Mallorca and through the Swiss Alps. After settling in Brookline, Massachusetts, the couple married in July 1934. At this time, Barbara still wrote, but her work was no longer in favour with publishers. Although initially happy, by 1937 Barbara had started expressing dissatisfaction concerning married life in her letters to close friends, and by 1938 these cracks had widened even further.[6] Follett soon came to believe that Rogers was being unfaithful to her and became depressed.[3]

Disappearance

According to her husband, on December 7, 1939, Follett left their apartment after a quarrel with $30 in her pocket ($528 in 2017). She was never seen again.[4]

Rogers did not report Follett's disappearance to police for two weeks, claiming that he was waiting for her to return. Four months after notifying police, he requested a missing persons bulletin be issued. As the bulletin was issued under Follett's married name of "Rogers", it went unnoticed by the media, which did not learn of her disappearance until 1966.

In 1952, thirteen years after Follett disappeared, her mother Helen began insisting that Brookline Police investigate the matter more thoroughly. Helen had become suspicious of Rogers after she discovered that he had made little effort to find his wife. In a letter to Rogers, she wrote: "All of this silence on your part looks as if you had something to hide concerning Barbara's disappearance ... You cannot believe that I shall sit idle during my last few years and not make whatever effort I can to find out whether Bar is alive or dead, whether, perhaps, she is in some institution suffering from amnesia or nervous breakdown."[3]

Follett's body was never found, and no evidence indicating or excluding foul play was ever produced. The date and circumstances of her death have never been established.[3]

Bibliography
  • The House Without Windows & Eepersip's Life There. New York and London: Knopf 1927. OCLC 870940 (Reprinted 1968, New York: Avon Camelot.) (Reprinted 2019, London: Hamish Hamilton OCLC 1112384789
  • The Voyage of the Norman D.. New York and London: Knopf 1928. OCLC 3561118
  • Lost Island (Plus Three Stories and an Afterword). Farksolia 2020 ISBN 9780996243148

See also

Notes
Citations
  1. "Barbara Newhall Follett Papers, 1919–1966". Columbia University Archive Collection. Retrieved February 17, 2012.
  2. Follett, Barbara N., The House Without Windows, Knopf, 1927, Historical Note by Wilson Follett, p. 156
  3. Paul Collins (December 2010). "Vanishing Act". Lapham's Quarterly. Archived from the original on August 2, 2014. Retrieved August 2, 2014.
  4. "Books: Tragedy in a Hothouse". Time Magazine. June 3, 1966. Archived from the original on 1 February 2011. Retrieved January 3, 2011.
  5. "Photos of Barbara's family". Farksolia. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  6. farksoo (2012-02-15). "Biography". Farksolia. Retrieved 2020-03-11.
  7. Morris, Jackie (14 September 2019). "First novel at 12, gone at 25: the mystery of Barbara Newhall Follett". The Guardian.
  8. NPR Staff (December 18, 2010). "Barbara Newhall Follett, Disappearing Child Genius". National Public Radio. Archived from the original on July 27, 2011. Retrieved January 4, 2011.

Further reading
  • McCurdy, Harold Grier (1966). Barbara: The Unconscious Autobiography of a Child Genius. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina. ISBN 978-0-8078-0989-1.
  • Wood, Naomi (1995). "Who Writes and Who Is Written?: Barbara Newhall Follett and Typing the Natural Child". Children's Literature. Project Muse. 23 (1): 45–46. doi:10.1353/chl.0.0184.
  • Cooke, Stefan (2015). Barbara Newhall Follett: A Life in Letters. Somerville, MA: Farksolia. p. 638. ISBN 978-0-9962431-1-7.
  • Hulbert, Ann (2018). Off the Charts. New York: Knopf. p. 400. ISBN 978-1-1019472-9-6
  • Smith, Laura (2018). The Art of Vanishing. New York: Viking. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-3995635-8-4
  • Schmeidler, Lynn (2018). History of Gone. El Paso, TX: Veliz Books. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-9969134-7-8
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