

Spyri's husband and her only child, both named Bernhard, both died in 1884. 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.


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 four weeks only. Whilst living in the city of Zürich she began to write about life in the country. In 1852, Johanna Heusser married a lawyer named Bernhard Spyri. Born in Hirzel, a rural area in the canton of Zurich, Switzerland, as a child she spent several summers near Chur in Graubünden, the setting she later would use in her novels. Johanna Louise Spyri ( German: née Heusser 12 June 1827 – 7 July 1901) was a Swiss author of novels, notably children's stories.
