Heidi

Johanna Spyri

Sep 2017 · Pan Macmillan

About this ebook

Written as a book 'for children and those who love children', Johanna Spyri’s affectionate account of Swiss mountain life is one of the bestselling books ever written, and a joyous portrait of the innocence of childhood.

Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much-loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure. This edition of Heidi is translated by Marian Edwardes and features charming line-drawn illustrations, and an afterword by editor Marcus Clapham.

At the age of six, little orphan Heidi is sent to live with her grandfather in the Alps. Everyone in the village is afraid of him, but Heidi – fascinated by his long beard and bushy grey eyebrows – takes to him immediately and soon earns his love in return. She adores her life in the mountains, playing in the sunshine and growing up among the goats and birds, but one terrible day Heidi is collected by her aunt and forced to live with a new family in town. Heartbroken by the loss of her Alpine life, she must do everything she can to return to her grandfather.

About the author

Johanna Louise Spyri was born in Hirzel, Switzerland on 12 June 1827. The daughter of a country doctor, she was one of six children. The family later moved to Zürich where the young Johanna went to school, studying languages and piano. She married a lawyer, Bernhard Spyri, in 1852 and they had one child, Bernard, who was born in 1855. Johanna began writing in earnest in 1871, with her many stories often featuring the idyllic Swiss countryside of her childhood. Her beloved children’s novel Heidi was published in 1881 and has become one of the bestselling books of all time. Following the tragic deaths of her husband and child in 1884, Spyri devoted herself to writing and charity work, completing over fifty more stories before her death in Zürich on 7 July 1901.