Tove Jansson

About Tove Jansson

Tove Jansson (9 August 1914 to 27 June 2001) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish writer, painter and cartoonist from Helsinki who created the Moomins and illustrated her own Moomin books, beginning with The Moomins and the Great Flood in 1945.

She was the daughter of the sculptor Viktor Jansson and the Swedish-born graphic artist Signe Hammarsten-Jansson. She studied in Stockholm and at the Finnish Art Society's drawing school in Helsinki, finishing in 1937, and for many years was the leading artist on the satirical magazine Garm, for which she produced around 100 covers and 600 drawings. The Moomin novels followed in Swedish: Kometjakten (1946, Comet in Moominland), Trollkarlens hatt (1948, Finn Family Moomintroll), Muminpappans bravader (1950), Farlig midsommar (1954, Moominsummer Madness), Trollvinter (1957), Pappan och havet (1965, Moominpappa at Sea) and Sent i november (1970). Thomas Warburton's English translation of Comet in Moominland appeared in 1951; Jansson revised the book in 1968. From the 1950s she drew a Moomin comic strip for the London Evening News, later shared with her brother Lars. She also illustrated Swedish editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Hunting of the Snark and, in 1962, The Hobbit. Her adult fiction includes The Summer Book (1972). She received the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1966, and the Moomin books have been translated into about 60 languages.

For collectors

Jansson's own drawings appear in the first editions of every Moomin book. Early English editions such as the 1951 Comet in Moominland predate her 1968 revision, so the text differs from later printings. Her illustrated Swedish Hobbit (1962) is a notable item outside the Moomin series.