Tove Jansson was born in 1914 and died in 2001. She was a Finnish, though Swedish-speaking, novelist and painter. She wrote many books of which the Moomin books were the most popular. She wrote in total eight Moomin books (picture books not counted) of which some were rewritten one of more times. The first Moomin book appeared in 1945 and the last as late as 1970.