Barbara Follett, was born March 4, 1914, to parents who both wrote. Barbara herself was a child literary prodigy, She had a book published by Alfred Knopf, A House Without Windows, and Eepersip’s Life There (1927). The book was reviewed favorably by the New York Times and the Saturday Review of Literature. She was 14 years old.
Here is some of her unpublished writing, from a letter made available on a web site dedicated to her life: www.farsolia.org
I have now started a story about kittens, and the most important character is Verbiny the princess who found the mother-cat in the woods, caught her, and tamed her. One of the four kittens had a black back arched up like a kangaroo rat’s, and at the top of each white stocking was a band of yellow. All the kittens catch little crickets and grasshoppers, and one of the kittens catches a bay mouse, and a kitten named Citrolane catches two sparrows, one with each paw. But just a little while after the kittens are born they want so much to see what is on the other side of the fence that fences in their property that they climb up over it and jump down and almost land on a porcupine, be he good-naturedly steps aside in time .
Follett was 8 years old when she wrote the above. When she was nineteen,she had an article about butterflies
published in the February, 1933, issue of The Horn Book Magazine. Titled, "In Defense of Butterflies," the narrative includes these details about her hobby catching butterflies in a net.
But where were the butterflies? They were all safe and free, playing out in the field in the sunlight, communing subtly with buttercups. This butterfly collection did not consist of dry, faded wings. I had typewritten long, detailed descriptions of these iridescent friends, not couched in entomological terms, because I knew none, but in the prettiest words I could conjure up. While I was writing one of these portraits, the butterfly itself would flutter under a sieve placed beside my typewriter. When the last shining spot or stripe had been carefully recorded I would set him free once more.
Such talent was encouraged by her academic parents. Her father taught English at Darmouth when Barbara Follett was born. He had almost finished a standard English grammar book when he died in 1963. The book was Modern American Usage (1966.). Barbara though had been gone more than 20 years by 1963. Nobody knows what happened: she walked out of a New York apartment after arguing with her husband, and was never seen again. In 1939, when she vanished, she was 25 years old.
I have now started a story about kittens, and the most important character is Verbiny the princess who found the mother-cat in the woods, caught her, and tamed her. One of the four kittens had a black back arched up like a kangaroo rat’s, and at the top of each white stocking was a band of yellow. All the kittens catch little crickets and grasshoppers, and one of the kittens catches a bay mouse, and a kitten named Citrolane catches two sparrows, one with each paw. But just a little while after the kittens are born they want so much to see what is on the other side of the fence that fences in their property that they climb up over it and jump down and almost land on a porcupine, be he good-naturedly steps aside in time .
Follett was 8 years old when she wrote the above. When she was nineteen,she had an article about butterflies
published in the February, 1933, issue of The Horn Book Magazine. Titled, "In Defense of Butterflies," the narrative includes these details about her hobby catching butterflies in a net.
But where were the butterflies? They were all safe and free, playing out in the field in the sunlight, communing subtly with buttercups. This butterfly collection did not consist of dry, faded wings. I had typewritten long, detailed descriptions of these iridescent friends, not couched in entomological terms, because I knew none, but in the prettiest words I could conjure up. While I was writing one of these portraits, the butterfly itself would flutter under a sieve placed beside my typewriter. When the last shining spot or stripe had been carefully recorded I would set him free once more.
Such talent was encouraged by her academic parents. Her father taught English at Darmouth when Barbara Follett was born. He had almost finished a standard English grammar book when he died in 1963. The book was Modern American Usage (1966.). Barbara though had been gone more than 20 years by 1963. Nobody knows what happened: she walked out of a New York apartment after arguing with her husband, and was never seen again. In 1939, when she vanished, she was 25 years old.
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