author
Barbara Newhall Follett
1914–1939
A dazzling child prodigy, she published her first novel at just twelve and seemed headed for a remarkable literary life. Instead, her story became one of American literature’s enduring mysteries when she disappeared in 1939 at age twenty-five.
2 Audiobooks
The house without windows & Eepersip's life there
by Barbara Newhall Follett
The voyage of the Norman D. : As told by the cabin-boy
by Barbara Newhall Follett
About the author
Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, in 1914, Barbara Newhall Follett showed extraordinary talent very early. She was homeschooled by her mother, grew up in a literary family, and began writing as a child. Her first novel, The House Without Windows, was published in 1927, and she followed it with The Voyage of the Norman D., inspired by her own sailing experiences.
Follett was celebrated as a rare young literary talent, not just for her age but for the vivid imagination and independence in her work. Her surviving papers show that she kept writing beyond her early success, producing fiction, essays, poems, and letters that have helped later readers piece together her life.
What makes her especially memorable today is the sharp turn her story took. In December 1939, after a difficult period in her personal life, she disappeared from Brookline, Massachusetts, and was never found. That unresolved ending has kept interest in her life and books alive, but her reputation rests first on the promise and originality she showed as a writer from an astonishingly young age.