Misdiagnosing the Past: Heidi, Nostalgia, and the Cure That Wasn’t There

This article examines the complex depictions of disability in the classic children’s novel Heidi (1880-81) by Johanna Spyri. Anglophone disability scholars have sometimes pigeonholed Heidi as inspirational and problematic, but have allowed memory and cultural consensus to supersede a rigorous examination of the text itself—potentially because of its reputation as a sentimental work for girls. Heidi offers intriguing portrayals of several characters with disabilities, including Heidi herself. Her diagnosis, nostalgia, was understood as a severe medical condition in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The history of nostalgia exemplifies how diagnostic categories rise and fall, but also how sexism and the legacy of eugenic thought can still impede historically attentive readings of disabled bodies in older literature. Reinforcing this point, close reading reveals the purported “miracle cure” of wheelchair user Klara Sesemann to be a fairly grounded depiction of rehabilitation. This article seeks to recover Spyri’s message of taking young girls seriously when it comes to their accounts of their own bodies and minds.