Novel
Finn Family Moomintroll
Trollkarlens hatt
Tove Jansson · 1948
Synopsis
In spring, the Moomin family wakes from hibernation. On their first walk, Moomintroll, Sniff and Snufkin find a large black hat on a hill and bring it home, not knowing that it belongs to a magician: everything placed in it is transformed, and the house becomes a jungle. Two small creatures arrive, speaking a secret language, carrying an enormous ruby stolen from the Groke, who soon comes to claim it.
Context
Third book of the series, published by Schildt in 1948, it is the first in which almost all the main characters are brought together and in which the action takes place almost entirely in the valley. Tofslan and Vifslan, who speak a language of their own, bear in Swedish the nicknames that the author and the theatre director Vivica Bandler gave each other. Translated into English in 1950 by Elizabeth Portch, it was sold as the first of the series, until the nineteen-eighties. It fed the first eight episodes of the 1990 television series.
Who it is for
A short novel illustrated by its author, for children and adults, in Swedish; available in French under the title Moumine le troll.
Prizes and reception
The book that made its author famous worldwide, through its English translation of 1950.