held in the State Library of Victoria, 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Tove Jansson was born in 1914 of Swedish speaking parents who lived in Helsinki. The oldest child of artist Signe Hammarsten Jansson and sculptor Viktor Jansson, Tove studied art in Sweden and France, but at an early age turned to writing.

Jansson's Moomintroll characters are highly individual fantasy creatures, part human and part animal, living in a rural world reminiscent of the author's home in Finland. A recurring motif in the series is one of security threatened from outside creating a pervading sense of lurking danger.

The Moomintroll figure is both hippopotamus-like yet child-like. In the early Moomintroll adventures, Moomintroll has a small, timid companion called Sniff bearing a resemblance to a kangaroo. Self-centred and dazzled by wealth, Sniff becomes less prominent in Jansson's later books, and finally disappears. The setting for these books is Scandinavian high fantasy, with the Lonely Mountains in the north and east, villages south of Moomin Valley and the remote islands in the western sea. This landscape contains parks and orphanages, prisons and astronomical observatories, lighthouses, telephones and fishing boats. The Moomin adventures are subject to many natural disasters such as floods, snowstorms, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and a near collision with a comet.

Moomin Valley is decidedly matriarchal, centred around Moominmamma. She represents the archetypal mother earth; an unending source of comfort, warmth, love and food. Jansson has said that Moominmamma was based upon her own mother, Signe, and that her mother's stories were the beginning of the Moomintroll tales.

When Comet in Moominland was published in 1946, Finland was emerging from WWII. This dangerous time is reflected in the devastation wreaked when the huge comet in Comet in Moominland dries up rivers and oceans, and the world becomes oppressively hot and dark. However Moomintroll's optimism and love of adventure prevents the story from becoming too frightening, but most importantly it is his confidence that whatever happens, Moominmamma will prevail.

Many strange and eccentric characters inhabit Moominland. There is the hero Moomintroll, his companion Sniff, his best friend Snufkin, the theatrical Misabel, the feather brained Snork Maiden, the matriarch Moominmamma, several stoic female characters in Mymble, Little My and Too-ticky, and the adult authority figures of the Fillyjonks. Male characters are sometimes ambiguous. While Moominpappa is an excellent craftsman, he is often dreamy or preoccupied, even bewildered. The Hemulen represent established authority, the male equivalent of the Fillyjonks, but more oppressively so.

There are also characters who do not represent a species such as the pale, anonymous Hattifatteners with plant like rudimentary arms and hands. Jansson can portray her irascible and frightening characters with sympathy; the philosophical Muskrat who lies in a hammock waiting for others to bring him lunch; and the long haired mound shaped creature called Groke who freezes the ground where she sits and for whom everything she touches dies. Jansson's later books about the Moomintroll family became increasingly philosophical and the characters introspective, appealing to an adolescent audience.

An artist in her own right, Tove Jansson has been recognised internationally with many awards, including the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1966 for her contribution to children's literature.