Years ago, in a little country called Switzerland, there lived a little girl who was the daughter of a doctor. That girl was Johanna Spyri, who grew up to write books like Heidi and other tales of Switzerland -- of people who made their scant living farming and sheep raising, of life on the mountains and the challenges of life among the Alps. She wrote of their sorrows and their joys; of children and her love for them; and this tale will share all of that with you ...
Author Biography
Johanna Louise Spyri, nee Heusser (1827 - 1901) was a Swiss-born author of novels, notably children's stories and is best known for her book Heidi. Born in Hirzel, a rural area in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland, as a child she spent several summers near Chur in Graubunden, the setting she later would use in her novels. In 1852, Johanna Heusser married Bernhard Spyri. Bernhard was a lawyer. Whilst living in the city of Zurich she began to write about life in the country. Her first story, A Note on Vrony's Grave, which deals with a woman's life of domestic violence, was published in 1880; the following year further stories for both adults and children appeared, among them the novel Heidi, which she wrote in four weeks. Heidi is the story of an orphan girl who lives with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps and is famous for its vivid portrayal of the landscape.
