Johanna Spyri
Children's Author
Nineteenth-century children's author best remembered for Heidi, a children's classic originally published in 1881. A popular Swiss author, she published more than fifty works of fiction over the course of her career.
She published her first literary work, a piece dealing with domestic violence and entitled A Note on Vrony's Grave, in 1880.
Her portrait appeared on a 1951 Swiss postage stamp and on a 2009 coin.
She married attorney Bernhard Spyri in 1852. Sadly, both her husband and her one child passed away in 1884.
She and American author Susan Warner both published popular children's books during the nineteenth century.