Oy Moomin Characters Ltd is the official copyright holder of the Moomin characters.

About the author

[IMAGE: Cover of Suomen Silta magazine, Tove Jansson]
Suomen Silta Magazine, March 1993.

Tove Jansson is known as the creator of the Moomintroll books and a gifted artist. She was born in Helsinki, Finland on August 9, 1914 to a sculptor, Viktor Jansson and a Swedish-born cartoonist, Singne Hammersten Jansson. "Tove was only 14 yars old when her drawings were published for the first time. It was in a Swedish-language periodical named Allas Kr&oumlnika. A year later, her drawings appeared in the humorous magazine Garm, for which her mother also drew pictures." [1] Jansson studied at Stockholm's School of Applied arts from 1930 to 1933, then at the art Society's school in Helsinki - the Ateneum. After the Ateneum she studied at Vapaa Taidekoulu - Free Art School. The it was on to art studies in Germany, Italy, France and London. Her artistic influences include the painter Samuel Resprosvanni (Sam Vanni) and the impressionists.

Jansson wrote her first brief Moomintroll tale in 1945. Comet in Moominland followed as the first Moomintroll book in 1946, leading to the succession of Moomin books which ended with Moominvalley in November in 1971. "Jansson, who has never married, spends part of the year in Helsinki and the rest on a remote and beautiful island in the Gulf of Finland where her family has gone in the summer since she was a child. The island appears both in her adult stories and in Moominpappa at Sea." [2] Her books have been translated into 34 different languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide. She has written nearly 30 books to date, and drew the Moomin newspaper comic strip from 1953 to 1959 when she terminated the contract so she could concentrate on her other artistic interests. The comic was continued by her brother Lars.

Some of her other artistic works that can be seen around Finland include:

  • 1947 - The frescoes on the basement walls of Helsinki's City Hall.
  • 1954 - The altarpeice in the parish church of Teuva, South Finnish Bothina.
  • 1952 - The mural in the Town Hall of Hamina.
  • 1953 - The mural in the coeducatinal secondary school in the municipality of Karjaa.
  • 1954 - Paintings for the Union Bank of Finland.
  • 1954 - Paintings for the vocational school in the southern port town of Kotka.

Other titles by Jansson include:

  • A Sculptor's Daughter.
  • Brev fran Klara.

"Tove Jansson ... received the Great Prize of the Swedish Academy on December 20, 1994. First established by King Gustav III in 1786, the prize is now awarded infrequently for outstanding achievement in one of the areas within the Swedish Academy's mandates. Past winners include Selma Lagerl&ouf (1904), Astrid Lindgren (1971), Ingmar Bergman (1977), and ... the composer Sven-Erik Back (1991). The Swedish Academy has the distinction of awarding the Nobel Prizes.
... Ms. Jansson was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal - another prestigious award - in 1966 by the Internation Board on Books for Young People for her lifetime contribution to children's books." [3]

To learn more about Tove Jansson, check out one of these good books:

  • W. Glyn-Jones, Tove Jansson. Twayne, 1984.Language: English
  • Jansson, Tove, A Sculptor's Daughter. Language: ?


For more information you can also contact Tove Jansson's publisher:

Schildts Förlags Ab
Rusthållargatan 1
02270 Esbo, Finland.
schildts@schildts.fi

Or any of these other websites:

Home Page | Tove Jansson | About the Books | The characters | Booklist | Animation, TV & Comics | Miscellaneous | References & Acknowledgements | Other Moomintroll related links | Other links of Interest |

[IMAGE: Little My] Fazia Begum Rizvi
fazia@io.com