Johanna Spyri (Swiss Standard German: [joˈhana ˈʃpiːri]; née Heusser [ˈhɔʏsər]; 12 June 1827 – 7 July 1901) was a Swiss author of novels, notably children's stories. She wrote the popular book Heidi. Born in Hirzel, a rural area in the canton of Zürich, as a child she spent several summers near Chur in Graubünden, the setting she later would use in her novels.
Biography
Spyri was the daughter of poet Meta Heusser-Schweizer. In 1852, Johanna Heusser married a lawyer named Bernhard Spyri who introduced her to Conrad Ferdinand Meyer and Richard Wagner; the latter of which was living in Zurich as a political refugee and became friendly with them. While in she began to write about life in the country. Her first story, "A Leaf on Vrony's Grave", which deals with a woman's life of domestic violence, was published in 1873; the following years further stories for both adults and children appeared, among them the novel Heidi, which she wrote in just four weeks. Heidi tells 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.
Spyri's husband and her only child, both named Bernhard, both died in 1884. Alone, she devoted herself to charitable causes and wrote over fifty more stories before her death in 1901. She was interred in the family plot at the Sihlfeld-A Cemetery in Zürich. An icon in Switzerland, Spyri's portrait was placed on a postage stamp in 1951 and on a 20 CHF commemorative coin in 2009.
Among her present-day relatives is Swiss artist and curator Andreas Heusser.
