By the age of 12, Barbara Newhall Follett had already become a published writer and was widely acknowledged as a literary prodigy—a ‘child genius’ whose imagination both critics and readers found captivating.

But in 1939, when she was 25, she disappeared without trace, her brief fame slipping quietly into obscurity.

Now, her half-nephew, Stefan Cooke, who has spent nearly 15 years researching her life, is seeking to resurrect Follett’s name and legacy.

‘That’s gonna be my job. To get her story out there again because it’s such a great story,’ he told the Daily Mail.

‘I wanted people to appreciate the wisdom that she had at such an early age.’

Follett shot to fame in 1927 with the publication of her novel The House Without Windows & Eepersip’s Life There.

The novel told the story of the titular Eepersip, a young girl who flees home to live in the wild. 

She is brought back by her parents but vanishes again permanently, in an eerie parallel of Follett’s own fate. 

Through his publishing house, Farksolia, Cooke has posthumously released her final novel, The Lost Island, published her letters, and reissued The Voyage of Norman D, which recounts Follett’s experiences on a ship.

He also continues to investigate what might have happened in the lead up to Follett’s disappearance – and has his own theory about her fate.

Born in New Hampshire in 1914, Follett was raised by parents immersed in the literary and academic worlds.

Her father, Wilson, who was Cooke’s grandfather, was a scholar who taught English at Dartmouth College and Brown University before moving on to an editorial position at Yale University Press and Knopf, while her mother Helen pursued a career as a writer.

Follett’s extraordinary literary talent blossomed from a young age: homeschooled and mostly socialized with adults, she began writing long before most children can spell.

By her mother’s accounts, she often wrote letters to friends and family, taking inspiration from the natural world around her.  

By six, she had produced her first 4,500 word short story. Two years later, she finished a novel. When that manuscript telling the tale of Eepersip was lost in a house fire, she reconstructed the entire book from memory. 

‘To write a novel-length book and then to have her manuscript burn up in the house fire, its only copy lost, and then to re-create it – I mean, that shows a great level of dedication,’ Cooke said.

According to Follett’s description: ‘It is about a little girl named Eepersip who lived on top of a mountain, Mount Varcrobis, and was so lonely that she went away to live wild. 

‘She talked to the animals, and led a sweet lovely life with them – just the kind of life that I should like to lead.’

Critics were enchanted, calling it ‘unbearably beautiful’.

In a New York Times article, one reviewer said: ‘It is hard not to wax enthusiastic over this wonderful little book.’

She later went on a 10-day excursion to Nova Scotia accompanied by a family friend. Upon her return, Follett published her next book, inspired by their adventures, titled The Voyage of the Norman D. 

By 14, she was being labeled as a child prodigy. 

But just as her literary star was rising, her personal life began to unravel. A tragic turning point came when her father left his family for a colleague, devastating the young Barbara and her mother who were plunged into poverty and emotional turmoil. 

Cooke is the grandson of Wilson Follett and his mistress. His mother, Jane Follett Cooke was the first child in Wilson’s second marriage. 

After a fractious trip together, Follett and her mother became estranged.

She stayed with friends in California while receiving psychiatric care and was enrolled in junior college. At 15, the young writer ran away to San Francisco and was detained by police for refusing to return to her guardian. 

In a newspaper interview, she defended the decision: ‘I came away because I felt I had to have my freedom. I felt utterly suppressed, almost frantic, under the plans that had been made for me. 

‘I did not want to enter college nor live the standardized existence. I have never been to school in my life. 

‘Perhaps I might like it – I do not know. But this I know: I do not want to like it.’

She later returned to the east coast, resumed writing and met Nickerson Rogers in 1931. They married three years later.

However, when she discovered he was having an affair, Follett soon realized their marriage could not be salvaged despite her efforts.  

In 1939, she left home with just $30 in her pocket, and vanished – never to be seen or heard from again. 

Because her husband waited two weeks to report the disappearance and finally did so under her married name, no one drew the connection to the precocious author until years later. 

Her own mother remained unaware that she was missing until the 1940s.

‘Barbara was right there in the 1920s and early 1930s struggling to make a way forward and she did admirably,’ Cooke said. ‘I am really really proud of her and the strides she made and the bravery she showed.’ 

To this day, the reason for Follett’s disappearance is a mystery. Some people have speculated suicide, others thought she had followed in the footsteps of her character Eepersip, a few even pointed to murder, either at the hands of her estranged husband or someone else. 

In November 1948, a deer hunter found human remains tangled in tree roots near Squam Lake – a sanctuary of Follett’s.

While a Harvard pathologist determined that they belonged to a missing local girl, discrepancies led Cooke to believe that the body may have been that of his aunt.

Eye glasses were found at the scene when the girl wore none, the shoes were a size and a half too big, and none of the belongings could be identified by the family. 

Cooke recalled that when he first heard about the body, his heart sank. ‘I was 99 percent sure that this was Barbara,’ he said. 

The remains, however, later disappeared, too. 

‘When I started this research, I did think that Barbara might have started a new life at the age of 25 with a new identity. I spent a lot of time imagining what might’ve happened to her.’ 

His theory now is that Follett took a train to Plymouth, Massachusetts, staying the night to think things over at a barn she and her husband rented, then walked the next morning to a nearby lake and died by suicide. He imagines that she may have hugged her favorite tree before passing.

Cooke maintains a website devoted to Follett, where he has documented her life and history. 

Commenters frequently chime in to share their thoughts on her disappearance. 

One wrote: ‘It occurred to me, too, that Barbara may have adopted a new identity and penned some work under a pseudonym.

‘I thought it most likely that she would have gone back to writing children’s books, since she’d had success with that but none of her adult stories. 

‘So I dug around trying to find anything about a writer of children’s books during that period – somebody whose identity may have been a secret or mystery – and could find no one that fit that description.’

Another guessed: ‘It was December of 1939 and the War was raging in Europe. She knew how to sail. 

‘Cut her hair short, assume a male name, the British won’t ask many questions about Able Seamen willing to ship aboard a tramper for the North Atlantic run. Wild? Perhaps, but she had the skill, and the imagination. 

‘I don’t see it as any less likely than a murder for which there’s no proof either. In a strange way, she lived her art… Vanishing as the world descended into war into a moment of infinite potentials. I hope she came out to a good one.’

A third said: ‘I have read a lot about Barbara and it really sounds like there may have been foul play on Nick’s part. It sounds like he felt trapped in a marriage while in love with someone else.’

Cooke, however, thinks that her husband was unhappy and wanted a divorce but was not involved with her disappearance. 

Reflecting on his aunt’s life and the speculation over her death, he concluded: ‘She was capable of absolutely anything.’