Johanna Spyri published Heidi in 1881. Wikipedia and the jacket cover of the Viking edition of Heidi, 1996, shed some light on the author’s life: Johanna Spryri was born Johanna Heussar in 1827 in Hirzel, Switzerland, a village with magnificent views of the Alps. As a child she spent several summers near Chur in Graubünden, the setting she would later use in her novels. In 1852 she married Bernhard Spyri; they were prominent in the literary and artistic circles of Zurich. Johanna Spyri wrote nearly fifty novels in her lifetime, for both adults and children, but the fame of Heidi – whose original German title is Heidi’s Years of Wandering and Learning – eclipsed all the rest.
Her husband and her only child, named Bernhard, both died in 1884. Alone, she devoted her self to charitable causes and to her writing. Although she is one of the most famous children’s writers in the world, little else is known of her life. When she was asked to write her autobiography, she refused, saying, “The external path of my life is quite simple, and there is nothing special to be mentioned. My life was full of storms, but who can describe it?” Johanna Spyri died in 1901.