The Vanishing of Barbara Newhall Follett: When a Literary Prodigy Disappeared Forever
At age twelve, Barbara Newhall Follett was hailed as a literary genius. By twenty-five, she had vanished without a trace, leaving behind one of the most haunting mysteries in American literary history.
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| Barbara Newhall Follett. Photo courtesy of Stefan Cooke. Farksolia: Barbara Newhall Follett's Home on the Web |
A Child Prodigy Emerges
Barbara's extraordinary story began in 1914 in Hanover, New Hampshire, where she was born to writers Helen and Wilson Follett. From an early age, Barbara displayed an almost supernatural connection to language and storytelling. At just four years old, she became fascinated by the rhythmic clacking of her father's typewriter—the "music of writing," as she called it (Morris 2019).
In a scene that seems pulled from fiction itself, young Barbara crept into her father's study one night and carried the heavy typewriter back to her room. From that moment, she was a writer (Morris 2019).
Barbara's parents, believing traditional schooling would stifle her gifts, educated her at home. This decision proved prophetic. By age five, she was composing lengthy fairy tales. At seven, she was writing poetry with startling sophistication. But it was at age eight that Barbara embarked on her masterwork—a novel she intended as a birthday gift for her mother (Morris 2019).
The House Without Windows
Barbara's first novel, The House Without Windows, tells the story of Eepersip, a lonely child who escapes the confines of civilization to live wild in nature. The book brims with a child's raw imagination as it explores profound themes of freedom and belonging. After a house fire destroyed her original manuscript, Barbara spent three years painstakingly reconstructing and reimagining the story from memory (Morris 2019).
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| The House Without Windows (New York: Knopf, 1927) | Public Domain |
When Wilson Follett showed the completed manuscript to his employer, Alfred A. Knopf, the response was extraordinary. The publisher not only accepted the book but watched in amazement as all 2,500 copies of the first printing sold out before the official publication date in 1927 (Farksoo 2012).
Critics were stunned. The New York Times called it "the most authentic and least self-conscious document of permanent value recorded in plastic intelligence" (Collins 2011). Eleanor Farjeon declared the pages "simply quiver with the beauty, happiness, and vigour of forests, seas, and mountains" (Farksoo 2012).
Barbara Newhall Follett had become America's most famous child author.
Success and Sacrifice
Fame brought both opportunities and challenges. Barbara received congratulatory telegrams, was interviewed on the radio, and even reviewed books by A.A. Milne (Morris 2019). But not everyone celebrated her success. Critic Anne Carroll Moore warned that early publication was "playing with fire," questioning what price Barbara would pay for her childhood fame (Collins 2011).
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| Barbara Newhall Follett. Photo courtesy of Stefan Cooke. Farksolia: Barbara Newhall Follett's Home on the Web |
Barbara's response was characteristically spirited: "I am very much amused at the favorable reviews which are being written—I do not take them at all seriously—but I do take seriously an article which distorts into a miserable caricature my living, my education, my whole personality" (Collins 2011).
Undeterred by criticism, Barbara threw herself into her next adventure. Determined to write authentically about seafaring for her second book, she convinced her parents to let her sail to Nova Scotia as a cabin "boy" at age thirteen. The resulting work, The Voyage of the Norman D, confirmed that her talent was no fluke (Morris 2019).
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| The Voyage of the Norman D. as told by a cabin-boy (New York: Knopf, 1928) | Public Domain |
The Foundation Cracks
Just as Barbara's literary star was ascending, her personal world collapsed. In 1928, Wilson Follett abandoned his family for a younger woman twenty years his junior. For Barbara, who had been devoted to her father, the betrayal was devastating (Farksoo 2012).
Helen Follett, left with little money and two daughters, decided to turn their dire situation into an adventure. Mother and daughter embarked on an ambitious journey through the Caribbean and Pacific, armed with portable typewriters and very little else. But the constant travel and emotional turmoil took their toll. In Tahiti, Barbara suffered what her mother described as a "smash—emotional and nervous" (Farksoo 2012).
The situation worsened when they reached California. Barbara was placed with family friends while Helen worked in Honolulu, but the teenager found the arrangement unbearable. In September 1929, she fled to San Francisco, registering at a hotel under the name "K. Andrews." When police found her, she attempted to jump from the window—whether as an escape attempt or something darker remains unclear (Pasadena Post 1929).
The Long Decline
The press seized on Barbara's troubles with sensational headlines like "Girl Writer, 15, Tries Suicide" (Farksoo 2012). The girl who had once charmed critics with her literary gifts was now tabloid fodder.
Barbara eventually reunited with her mother in New York, but their financial situation remained desperate. At sixteen, Barbara found herself taking secretarial jobs to survive—a crushing irony for someone who had once been hailed as America's literary future. "My dreams are going through their death flurries," she wrote in June 1930. "They die trying before the iced javelin of Time and Money" (Collins 2011).
Despite these hardships, Barbara continued writing. She completed Lost Island, a novel about a couple shipwrecked on a Pacific island—a work that reflected her growing disillusionment with civilization. But publishers, no longer interested in the former child prodigy, repeatedly rejected the manuscript (Farksoo 2012).
In 1931, Barbara met Nickerson Rogers, a Dartmouth graduate who shared her love of the outdoors. Together, they hiked the Appalachian Trail and traveled through Europe, offering Barbara a temporary escape from her troubles. They married in 1934, and for a time, Barbara seemed to find stability (Farksoo 2012).
The Final Act
By 1939, even this sanctuary had begun to crumble. Nick Rogers wanted a divorce—there was another woman involved. Barbara, devastated and desperate, wrote to a friend: "On the surface things are terribly, terribly calm, and wrong—just as wrong as they can be... I still think there is a chance that the outcome will be a happy one; but I would have to think that anyway, in order to live" (Farksoo 2012).
On the evening of December 7, 1939, after an argument with Nick, Barbara left their Brookline apartment with about thirty dollars and a notebook. She never returned (Mills 2019).
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| The Apartment Building Where Barbara Newhall Follett Lived in 1939. Photo courtesy of Stefan Cooke. Farksolia: Barbara Newhall Follett's Home on the Web |
Nick waited two weeks before reporting her missing, perhaps hoping she would come back. When he finally contacted police, he initially requested no publicity—perhaps remembering the media circus of 1929 (Mills 2019). The bulletin that eventually went out to eight states was stark in its simplicity: "Missing from Brookline since Dec. 7, 1939, Barbara Rogers, married, Age 26, 5-7, 125, fair complexion, black eyebrows, brown eyes, dark auburn hair worn in a long bob" (Mills 2019).
But using her married name meant few would connect the missing woman with the famous child author of thirteen years earlier.
Theories and Mysteries
What happened to Barbara Newhall Follett? The theories are as varied as they are haunting.
Some believe she simply started over with a new identity—the ultimate escape for someone who had been writing about freedom and reinvention her entire life. Others suspect suicide, pointing to her depression and access to sleeping pills (Mills 2019).
The most intriguing theory emerged decades later when researcher Daniel Mills investigated the discovery of unidentified human remains near Squam Lake, New Hampshire in 1948. The location held deep significance for Barbara—she and Nick had rented a farmhouse nearby, and she had written lovingly of the area (Mills 2019). The remains belonged to a woman of about Barbara's age and height, found with horn-rimmed glasses and other items that could have been hers. However, the bones have since vanished, making DNA comparison impossible (Mills 2019).
A Literary Ghost
Barbara Newhall Follett's disappearance ensures she remains forever young in literary memory—a brilliant talent snuffed out before it could fully bloom. Her story serves as a cautionary tale about child prodigies, early fame, and the price of genius in an unforgiving world.
In her most famous work, The House Without Windows, Barbara wrote of Eepersip's final transformation: "She would be invisible ever to all mortals, save those few who have minds to believe, eyes to see... To these she is ever present, the spirit of Nature—a naiad of the meadow, a naiad of the lakes, a nymph of the woods" (Collins 2011).
Perhaps this was Barbara's own escape route—not death, but transformation into something eternal and free. In her writing, at least, she achieved the liberation her characters always sought.
The mystery of Barbara Newhall Follett remains unsolved. Still, her words endure—a testament to a remarkable talent that blazed briefly but brilliantly across the American literary landscape before vanishing forever into the realm of legend.
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| Cover of Barbara Newhall Follett: A Life in Letters by Stefan Cook | Published by Farksolia 2015 | Available at Amazon |
Join the Conversation
What's your theory about what really happened to Barbara?
I keep coming back to this mystery—here's this brilliant woman who loved vanishing into nature like her character Eepersip, who had a history of dramatic disappearances, who was clearly struggling with depression. Then there are those mysterious remains found near a place she cherished. Did she finally succeed in creating that new identity she'd always dreamed of? Was it something darker? Or did someone else play a role in her disappearance? I'm curious which details from her story stick with you most when you think about what might have happened.
Could Barbara's story have turned out differently?
It breaks my heart thinking about everything that went wrong—the early fame that became a burden, parents who abandoned her when she needed them most, the financial struggles, and all those suffocating expectations society had for women back then. It makes me wonder: are child prodigies just set up for heartbreak, or were there missed opportunities along the way? Different choices her parents could have made? Ways publishers could have protected rather than exploited her? And honestly, it makes me think about how we handle extraordinarily gifted kids today—are we doing any better?
Join us in our next post as we explore the mysterious disappearance of Weldon Kees...
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📚 For Further Reading
Baker City Herald. "Girl Held For Trying to Jump Out Window." September 20, 1929.
Bolch, Judy. "Life of Child Genius Unfolded In Penetrating 'Unconscious Biography.'" Rocky Mountain Telegram, May 29, 1966.
Collins, Paul. "Vanishing Act." Lapham's Quarterly, 2011. https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/celebrity/vanishing-act.
Farksoo [Stefan Cooke]. "Barbara Newhall Follett's Life and Letters." Farksolia (blog), February 15, 2012. https://farksolia.org/about-barbara-follett/.
Follett, Barbara. "Barbara Newhall Follett Papers, 1919-1966, Bulk 1919-1939." Columbia University Libraries Archival Collections. Accessed June 4, 2025. https://findingaids.library.columbia.edu/archives/cul-4078771.
Follett, Barbara Newhall, and Stefan Cooke. Barbara Newhall Follett: A Life in Letters. First Edition. Sommerville, MA: Farksolia, 2015.
Mills, Daniel. "A Place of Vanishing: Barbara Newhall Follett and the Woman in the Woods." Los Angeles Review of Books, April 5, 2019. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-place-of-vanishing-finding-barbara-newhall-follett.
Morris, Jackie. "First Novel at 12, Gone at 25: The Mystery of Barbara Newhall Follett." The Guardian, September 14, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/14/house-without-windows-barbara-newhall-follett-jackie-morris.
Pasadena Post. "Police Catch Child Author." September 20, 1929.
Time. "Books: Tragedy in a Hothouse." June 3, 1966. https://web.archive.org/web/20110201212017/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0%2C9171%2C835766%2C00.html.
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