Heidi is a Swiss work of fiction, published in two parts as (1) Heidi's years of learning and travel (German: Heidis Lehr- und Wanderjahre) and (2) Heidi makes use of what she has learned. (German: Heidi kann brauchen, was sie gelernt hat) It is a novel about the events in the life of a young girl in her grandfather's care, in the Swiss Alps. It was written as a book "for children and those who love children" (as quoted from its subtitle) in 1880 by Swiss author Johanna Spyri.
The Heidi book is among the best-known works of Swiss literature.
Adelheid (familiarly known as Heidi) is a girl who has been raised by her aunt Dete in Maienfeld, Switzerland after the early deaths of her parents, Tobias and Adelheid. Dete brings 5-year-old Heidi to her grandfather, who has been at odds with the villagers for years and lives in seclusion on the alm. This has earned him the nickname Alp-Öhi ("Alm Uncle" in the Graubünden dialect). He at first resents Heidi's arrival, but the girl manages to penetrate his harsh exterior and Heidi subsequently has a delightful stay with him and her best friend, young Peter the goat-herd.
In German, von [fɔn] is a preposition which approximately means of or from.
When it is used as a part of a German family name, it is usually a nobiliary particle, like the French, Galician, Spanish and Portuguese de. At certain times and places, it has been illegal for anyone who was not a member of the nobility to use von before their family name. However, in the Middle Ages the von particle was still a common part of names and was widely used also by commoners, e.g. "Hans von Duisburg" meant Hans from [the city of] Duisburg. The Dutch van, which is a cognate of von but does not indicate nobility, can be said to have preserved this earlier meaning.
The abolition of the monarchies in Germany and Austria in 1919 meant that neither state had a privileged nobility, and both had exclusively republican governments.
In Germany, this meant that in principle von simply became an ordinary part of the names of the people who used it. There were no longer any legal privileges or constraints associated with this naming convention. According to German alphabetical sorting people with von in their surnames – of noble or non-noble descent alike – are listed in telephone books and other files, under the rest of their name (e.g. Ludwig von Mises would be under M in the phone book rather than V).