It’s one of the bestselling books not only in Switzerland, but over the entire world. None of the dozens of subsequent novels and stories she published came close to the success of Heidi, though that work alone was enough to make Johanna Spyri a national legend.

Spyri continued to write prolifically as well as to devote herself to charitable causes. Tragically, Spyri’s husband and their son both died in the same year, 1884. Its original subtitled states that it is “a book for children and those who love children.” Heidi was published in its original German in 1881. Her first story, about a woman’s experience with domestic abuse, wasn’t published until 1880, when the author was already in her early fifties.īernhard and Johanna Spyri when first married in 1852 It would take many years before her work was published, however. While the couple was living in Zurich, she began to tell stories to their son to amuse him, and her husband encouraged her to set them to paper. In 1852, when Johanna was 25, she married a former schoolmate, Bernhard Spyri, who became an attorney. The Huessers opened their home to the intellectual and literary figures of that time and place. Her father was a well-known and greatly beloved physician in Zurich. Her mother, Meta Huesser, was a popular songwriter and poet. Johanna Spyri (J– July 7, 1901) born Johanna Louise Heusser, was a Swiss author best known for her first and most successful book, the 1881 children’s novel Heidi.īorn in rural Hirzel, not far from Zurich, she grew up in a happy, cultured home in a literary environment.

Heidi book by johanna spyri