COLOR PLATE FRONTISPIECE 4 BLACK & WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS "Johanna Spyri (12 June 1827 - 7 July 1901) was an author of children's stories, and is best known for her book Heidi. Born Johanna Louise Heusser in the rural area of Hirzel, Switzerland, as a child she spent several summers in the area around Chur in Graubünden, the setting she later would use in her novels. In 1852, Johanna Heusser married Bernhard Spyri, a lawyer. While living in the city of Zürich she began to write about life in the country. Her first book titled A Leaf on Vrony's Grave, was published in 1871 and the following year further stories for both adults and children appeared, among them the tale of Heidi, which she wrote in four weeks. Heidi, the story of an orphan girl who lives with her grandfather in the Alps, is famous for its vivid portrayal of the landscape, and Heidi has become a personification of the Swiss alps. Her husband and her only child, a son named Bernard, 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 2001. In April 2010, a professor, who searching for children's illustrations, found a book written in 1830 by a German history teacher, Adam von Kamp, that Spyri may have used as a basis for Heidi. The 1830 story is titled Adelheide - das Mädchen von Alpengebirge translated, "Adelheide, the girl from the Alps". The two stories share many similarities in plot line and imagery. Spyri biographer Regine Schindler said it was entirely possible that Spyri may have been familiar with the story as she grew up in a literate household with many books." Wikipedia Poor red cloth. Lacking title page. (1933), 8vo, 404pp.

Children  Swiss