If I mention these circumstances, it is because they are interesting in themselves, and not because I am soliciting grown-up indulgence for a fanciful story by a precocious child.
It is a second draft of Eepersip’s story, completed when Barbara was twelve, which is now before us. But Barbara (as Carlyle did, after John Stuart Mill’s famous housemaid incinerated the first draft of “The French Revolution”) set to work again. That, I submit, would have settled the matter for most children–and for most adult authors, too. Fire destroyed the first manuscript in a jealous house with windows which, as I am convinced, burned itself to the ground out of sheer malice. So she set to work on her own typewriter and wrote down the story of Eepersip’s life in the House Without Windows. Barbara thought of it and adopted it and when she was nine, she decided that on her tenth birthday she would make her mother a special present. Unhappily, one cannot commend this gentle custom to other children, since it loses all charm if not originally thought of by the giver.
When Barbara Follett has a birthday, she always gives her mother a present.
This strange, delightful, and lovely book was written by a little girl as a present for her mother. Redolent of classics such as The Secret Garden and The Little Prince, whilst casting its own, very singular spell over its readers, this ravishing tale carries haunting echoes of the author’s own enigmatic life, and mysterious disappearance in 1939 at the age of just 25.THE HOUSE WITHOUT WINDOWS. A magical story of self-discovery and the lure of the great outdoors, Follett's masterpiece follows the free-spirited Eepersip in her quest to break away from the confinement of her family home and immerse herself in the wonders of nature.Ī rare treat for young and old alike, The House Without Windows has now been republished in a stunning new edition illustrated by the award-winning artist behind The Lost Words, Jackie Morris. Originally written by Barbara Newhall Follett in 1927, when she was only twelve years old, The House Without Windows is an enchanting fable about the rhapsodic beauty of the natural world, and one of our very favourite books of the year. Step inside the pages of an enchanting children's classic. ‘A gem of a book… and the ideal vehicle for Jackie Morris’s singular, absolute talent’ – Peter at Head Office Shortlisted for the Waterstones Book of the Year 2019
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