About
The Memoirs Of Moominpappa Synopsis
Special collectors' hardback editions lovingly restored to original designs. A beautiful collectors' edition of this classic Moomin story, using original 50s and 60s cover artwork, gorgeous endpapers and including for the first time a special prologue written by Tove but never before published in the UK.
'One cold and windy autumn evening many years ago a newspaper parcel was found on the doorstep of the Home for Moomin Foundlings. In that parcel I lay, quite small and shivering with cold.' So begins the remarkable Memoirs of Moominpappa, a book written to delight his dear son Moomintroll and friends.
What follows is a story about storytelling itself. Moominpappa weaves one fabulous tale after another, writing at night to read aloud by day and featuring not only the fearless, adventurous author but also the fathers of Sniff and Snufkin - the rather muddled Muddler and the carefree Joxter.
Add to this mix the genius inventor Hodgkins and a grand finale in which Moominpappa rescues a shipwrecked Moominmamma from the waves and the fun becomes irresistible. The Memoirs of Moominpappa, was first published in the UK in 1950 under the title The Exploits of Moominpapa. In the early 1960s Tove Jansson substantially revised this text, redrawing pictures and reinstating her preferred title.
This is the very first time the revised edition has become available in the UK. From the publisher of The Invisible Child and The Fir Tree (all proceeds to Oxfam) here's the Moomin gift editions.
About This Edition
Press Reviews
Tove Jansson Press Reviews
‘I love these editions - so beautifully produced, so solid and permanent, just as Tove Jansson deserved’ Philip Pullman
‘Tove Jansson is one of the greatest children's writers there has ever been’ Sir Terry Pratchett
‘(These editions) are simply stunning, and an absolute must-read. The Moomin novels are timeless stories full of adventure and heart-warming values - perfect for Christmas’ The Bookseller
Author
About Tove Jansson
Tove Jansson (1914 – 2001), was born in 1914 in Helingsfors, Finland. Her mother was a charicaturist and the designer of many of Finland’s stamps, and her father was a sculptor. Tove studied painting in Finland, Sweden and France and later worked as a book illustrator, a designer and strip cartoonist, as well as being involved in theatre décor and making frescoes in public places. She drew her first Moomin in the 1930s, just for fun, to tease her little brother by drawing the ugliest creature she could think of. Moomin developed a nicer snout and character and in 1939 he became a character in a children’s story. The Finn Family Moomingtroll has been a hugely successful book, translated into many languages – many other Moomin stories followed.
In 1966 Tove Jansson was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal – an international award for the best children’s book of the year.
Most of the books were written on a small island in the Gulf of Finland where Tove, her mother and brother were the only inhabitants. Later Tove continued to live alone on the island - It takes an hour to row to the nearest island. Some years ago she wrote of the island:
‘It is so small you can walk around it in ten minutes. It is shaped like an atoll and surrounds a deep lake which in good weather makes a fine swimming pool, but in bad weather turns into a raging torrent surrounded by waterfalls. Then our boat has to be pulled right up to the house and tied to the veranda. We only have one tree, a rowan, which bloomed for the first time last summer. But we plant wild roses in the crevices, and potatoes. And we fish. We use rainwater for our coffee and driftwood for our fires. My favourite weather is fog, when the island seems to be afloat at the very end of the world in perfect silence and solitude. Only rarely does one hear the foghorns from the open sea where big ships go by for foreign countries.’
In this very special, beautiful and challenging environment Tove’s imagination and artistic talent flourished.
More About Tove Jansson
