It is as if she is turning away from our peopled world. Eepersip’s affinity with nature seems to diminish her capacity for human empathy, as evinced by some startling scenes involving her long-suffering family. After making merry in the meadows and the mountains, Eepersip heads for the ocean and lives like a mermaid, in a dress of woven seaweed and shells.Įnchanted as I was by this elemental magic, reading it gave me a slight chill. Can this wild spirit be tamed?įirst published in 1927, in this elegant new hardback edition, Jackie Morris provides beautiful illustrations and an introduction to a lost classic that she says sings to her soul across a century.Īs Eepersip runs free with the deer and dances with butterflies, she muses that she ‘…could never, never go back,’ the themes of captivity and escape writ large as she attempts to outwit her searching parents. She does not want to be suffocated by conventional home and hearth, but her parents, in their desperation to keep her ‘safe’ have other ideas. Running away from home, Eepersip experiences transcendental joy in her communion with nature. The House Without Windows by Barbara Newhall Follett tells the strange tale of a lonely little girl named Eepersip, who yearns to escape the confines of her family and roam free forever in the wilderness.
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