Heidi is the heart-warming tale of a small girl's power for good, and it has remained a firm favourite since it was published over 100 years ago. It has been filmed and televised several times. It tells of the orphan Heidi and her idyllic existence with her gruff grandfather in the mountains. When she is sent to live in a city, comic chaos ensues, and eventually it is arranged that Heidi should return to the mountains. Together she and her friend Peter, the goat-herd, achieve wondrous changes in the community in which they live. AUTHOR: In 1852, Johanna Heusser married Bernhard Spyri, a lawyer. While living in the city of Zurich 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 that became an instant and enduring success. 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 Zurich, Switzerland. An icon in Switzerland, Johanna Spyri's portrait was placed on a postage stamp in 1951 and on a 20 CHF commemorative coin in 2001.
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