Gritli's Children Volume I by Johanna Spyri, author of Heidi, 1924 edition.

Written by Johanna Spyri. Translated by Louise Brooks. Published in 1924; translated from 1884 first edition. Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York.

Chapter V
On Oak-Ridge

"Emma looked at her companion as puzzled as if she were speaking in a foreign tongue. "Tired" was a word unknown to Emma's vocabulary. Her greatest sorrow when evening came, was that the day was done and she must go to bed. No day was long enough to tire her nimble feet, and her only regret was that she ever had to stop walking and running and climbing. She stared at Nora a moment, not knowing what to say, and then the very face at which she was gazing put a thought into her head, and she said cheerfully: 'I see now what you mean, but that is only because you are not strong and well; pretty soon you will be well, and then you will be like me, and I am never tired.'"

Emma is speaking to Nora, who is very ill and not expected to live long. Gritli's Children, Volumes I and II, tells of the Stanhope family and the widowed Mrs. Stanhope's efforts to care for her two "fragile" children, Philo and Nora. The story reflects the romanticism of the Victorian era, and religious faith in an afterlife, in its treatment of childhood illness and death. A more common reality in the lives of people at the time than in our own today. Spyri writes in lovely prose of the Swiss landscape, the families' warm relationships and welcoming homes, and the children's lives.

Louise Brooks was an accomplished translator, faithful to the authors' work, including several of Spyri's books. But she altered the ending of Gritli's Children, apparently to lighten the story's emphasis on loss.

Johanna Louise Spyri (1827-1901) is one of Switzerland's most-beloved authors as the creator of Heidi, the story of the orphan girl who melts a grandfather's heart and wins the hearts of all who meet her. Spyri was tutored at home and attended school both at home and in Zurich. She wrote her first story, A Leaf on Vrony's Grave, in 1871. She wrote numerous stories for both children and adults, but her most famous work was Heidi, which was published in 1880. Both her husband and son died in 1884. She spent her remaining years writing, raising her niece, and doing charity work.

Etsy.com/shop/TheCharmedBookshop
Visit TheCharmedBookshop.com for more fine books for young readers and collectors.

Condition: Very Good. Lacks dust jacket, as issued. Blue cloth cover board with black, blue, yellow floral decoration: Light shelf wear; lightly bumped at corners; light rubbing, very small closed tears at the tail of the spine; small black spot on the back, lower left corner; small stain on upper text block. Page tanning else pages are clean, undamaged, and complete.