Johanna Spyri (German: [joˈhana ˈʃpiːri]; née Heusser [ˈhɔʏsər]; 12 June 1827 – 7 July 1901) was a Swiss author of novels, notably children's stories.

Born in Hirzel, a rural area in the canton of Zürich, as a child she spent several summers near Chur in Graubünden, the setting she later would use in her novels.

Heidi tells the story of an orphan girl who lives with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps, and is famous for its vivid portrayal of the landscape.

In April 2010 a professor searching for children's illustrations found a book written in 1830 by a German history teacher, Hermann Adam von Kamp, that Spyri may have used as a basis for Heidi.

[2] However, the professor's claims have been examined and afterwards described as "unscientific", due to 'superficial coincidences' he brings up in descriptions and the many actual differences in the story, that he doesn't, as well as the "Swiss disease" of homesickness already being a common trope in fiction in the eighteenth (nineteenth in the article) century (as well as, while not mentioned in the article, it being discovered before von Kamp was even born) and characters that are either drastically different or not in "Adelaide", at all.