Heidi


Heidi is a work of children's fiction published in 1881 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri, originally published in two parts as Heidi: Her Years of Wandering and Learning and Heidi: How She Used What She Learned.
It is a novel about the events in the life of a young girl in her paternal grandfather's care in the Swiss Alps. It was written as a book "for children and those who love children".
Heidi is one of the best-selling books ever written and is among the best-known works of Swiss literature.

Plot

Heidi is an orphaned girl initially raised by her maternal aunt Dete in Maienfeld, Switzerland after the early deaths of her parents, Tobias and Adelheid. When some people ask Dete to come to the city and be their maid, Dete takes 5-year-old Heidi to her paternal grandfather's house, up the mountain from the Dörfli. He has been at odds with the villagers and embittered against God for years and lives in seclusion on the alm, which has earned him the nickname 'The Alm-Uncle'. He briefly resents Heidi's arrival, but the girl's evident intelligence and cheerful yet unaffected demeanor soon earn his genuine, if reserved, love. Heidi enthusiastically befriends her new neighbours, young Peter the goatherd, his mother, Brigitte, and his blind maternal grandmother. With each season that passes, the mountaintop inhabitants, especially Peter and the grandmother, grow more attached to Heidi, and she to them.
Three years later, Dete returns to take Heidi to Frankfurt to be a hired lady's companion to a wealthy girl named Clara Sesemann, who is unable to walk and regarded as an invalid. Clara is charmed by Heidi's simple friendliness and her descriptions of life on the Alm, and delights in all the funny mishaps brought about by the naïve Heidi's lack of experience with city life. However, the Sesemanns' strict housekeeper, Fräulein Rottenmeier, views the household disruptions as wanton misbehaviour, and places Heidi under more and more restraint. Soon, Heidi becomes terribly homesick and grows alarmingly pale and thin. Her one diversion is learning to read and write, motivated
Heidi and Clara continue to keep in touch and exchange letters. A visit by the doctor to Heidi leads him to eagerly recommend that Clara visit Heidi, feeling assured that the fresh mountain air and the wholesome companionship will do her good. Clara makes the journey the next season and spends a wonderful summer with Heidi, becoming stronger on goat's milk and fresh mountain air. But Peter, who grows jealous of Heidi's and Clara's friendship, pushes her empty wheelchair down the mountain to its destruction, although he is soon wracked with guilt about what he did and ultimately confesses to it. Without her wheelchair, Clara has no choice but to learn to walk; she attempts to do so and is gradually successful. She is not very strong, often relying on Heidi or the grandfather to stay standing and not collapse, but it marks an end to her time as a lonely, shut-in invalid. Her grandmother and father are amazed and overcome with joy to see Clara walking again. The Sesemann family promises to provide permanent care for Heidi, if there ever comes a time when her grandfather is no longer able to do so.

Translations

English: Thirteen English translations were done between 1882 and 1959, by British and American translators: Louise Brooks, Helen B. Dole, H.A. Melcon, Helene S. White, Marian Edwardes, Elisabeth P. Stork, Mabel Abbott, Philip Schuyler Allen, Shirley Watkins, M. Rosenbaum, Eileen Hall, and Joy Law.

Adaptations

Film and television

About 25 film or television productions of the original story have been made. The Heidi films were popular far and wide, becoming a huge hit, and the Japanese animated series became iconic in several countries around the world. The only incarnation of the Japanese-produced animated TV series to reach the English language was a dubbed feature-length compilation movie using the most pivotal episodes of the television series, released on video in the United States in 1985. Although the original book describes Heidi as having dark, curly hair, she is usually portrayed as blonde.
Versions of the story include:
A stage musical adaptation of Heidi with book and lyrics by Francois Toerien, music by Mynie Grové and additional lyrics by Esther von Waltsleben, premiered in South Africa at the Klein Karoo National Arts Festival in 2016. Directed by Toerien with musical direction by Dawid Boverhoff, the production starred Tobie Cronjé, Dawid Minnaar, Albert Maritz, Ilse Klink, Karli Heine, Lynelle Kenned, Dean Balie, Jill Middlekop and Marlo Minnaar. Puppets for the production were created by Hansie Visagie.
A stage musical adaptation of Heidi of the Mountain was performed in Sidney, BC, Canada by Mountain Dream Productions, premiering in 2007 at the Charlie White Theatre, and has been performed again several times since then. The 2007 production starred Claude Watt, Margaret Watt, Rianne Craig and Katrina Brindle.

Computer games

There have been two Heidi computer games released for mobile devices, with the most recent being Heidi: Mountain Adventures. Both games are based on the Studio 100 TV series of 2015 and are aimed at young children, with educational elements and a series of mini-games.

Heidiland

Heidiland, named after the Heidi books, is an important tourist area in Switzerland, popular especially with Japanese and Korean tourists. Maienfeld is the center of what is called Heidiland; one of the villages, formerly called Oberrofels, is actually renamed "Heididorf". Heidiland is located in an area called Bündner Herrschaft; it is criticized as being a "laughable, infantile cliche" and "a more vivid example of hyperreality."

Sequels

The five sequel books, Heidi and Her Friends, Heidi Grows Up, Heidi's Children, Heidi grand-mère 1941 and Au Pays de Heidi 1952, were neither written nor endorsed by Spyri, but were adapted from her other works by her French translator, Charles Tritten in the 1930s, many years after she died.
There are some major differences between the original Heidi and the Tritten sequels. These include;
In 1990, screenwriters Weaver Webb and Fred & Mark Brogger, and director Christopher Leitch, produced Courage Mountain, starring Charlie Sheen and Juliette Caton as Heidi. Billed as a sequel to Spyri's story, the film is anachronistic in that it depicts Heidi as a teenager during World War I, despite the fact that the original novel was published in 1881.

Basis for ''Heidi''

In April 2010, a Swiss professorial candidate, Peter Buettner, uncovered a book written in 1830 by the German author Hermann Adam von Kamp. The 1830 story is titled "Adelaide: 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.

Reception

The book has been criticised, even in its day, for its religiously conservative positions, and later for black-and-white character portrayals and an idealization of pastoral life.
In Japan, since its first Japanese translation in 1906, the book has been influential upon the general, stereotypical image of Switzerland for the Japanese, especially its tourists, many visiting the Heidi's Village park.