Heidi

Heidi — page 1

Heidi — page 2 — INTRODUCTION Unassuming in plot and style Heidi may none the less lay claim to rank as a world classic In the first place both background and characters ring true The air of the Alps is wafted to us in every page the house among the pines the meadows and the eagle poised above the naked rocks form a picture that no one could willingly forget And the people from the kindly towns folk to the quaint and touching peasant types are as real as any representation of human nature need be Every goat even has its personality As for the little heroine she is a blessing not only to everyone in the story but to everyone who reads it The narrative merits of the book are too iii

Heidi — page 3 — apparent to call for comment As to the author Johanna Spyri she has so entirely lost herself in her creation that we may pass over her career rather rapidly She was born in Switzerland in 1829 came of a literary family and devoted all her talent to the writing of books for and about children Since Heidi has been so often translated into English it may well be asked why there is any need for a new version The answer lies partly in the conventional character of the previous translations Now if there is any quality in Heidi that gives it a particular charm that quality is freshness absolute spontaneity To be sure the story is so attractive that it could never be wholly spoiled but has not the reader the right to enjoy it in English at least very nearly as much as he could in German The two languages are so different in nature that anything like a literal rendering of one into the other is sure to result in awkwardness and indirectness Such iv Heidi

Heidi — page 4 — a book must be not translated but re-lived and re-created To perform such a feat the writer must to begin with be familiar with the mountains and able to appreciate with Wordsworth The silence that is in the starry sky The sleep that is among the lonely hills The translator of the present version was born and reared in a region closely similar to that of the story Her home was originally in the picturesque town of Salzburg and her father Franz von Pausinger was one of the greatest landscape painters of his country and generation Another equally important requisite is knowledge of children It happens that this translator has a daughter just the age of the heroine who moreover loves to dress in Tyrolese costume To translate Heidi was for her therefore a labor of love which means that the love contended with and overcame the labor v Johanna Spyri

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