Tove Jansson

Gifted creator of the Moomins, a fantasy family for children and adults alike

Tove Jansson, the Finnish artist and writer who created the extraordinary world of the Moomins, has died aged 86. She became famous in England when the London Evening News published a daily Moomins comic strip that ran from 1952-70. Books about the characters were translated into 35 languages.

The eccentric Moomin family - with its assorted foster relatives, ancestors and friends - are among the greatest creations of children's literature. Jansson both wrote and illustrated the stories, which convey a magical world inhabited by quirky creatures with recognisable human qualities. Like all great child- ren's fiction, her work appeals as much to adults.

Jansson was born into an unusual background in the Finnish capital, Helsinki. She belonged to the country's Swedish-speaking minority, and her parents were both artists; her mother was the Swedish illustrator, Signe Hammersten Jansson, who illustrated the radical, anti-German magazine, Garm; her father was the sculptor Victor Jansson. Tove was the first of three children, and her brothers, Per Olov and Lars, became artists. Indeed, Per Olov took over the Moomin cartoon strip when Tove gave up in the 1970s.

The family were close, and Tove did not leave home until the age of 28, apart from a brief spell in Stockholm studying art after she left school at 15. "School was boring," she said, "and I have forgotten everything about it, including why I was afraid of it." She also said she never had to become an artist because she always was one - creativity and drawing being the norm at home.

The family combined a liberal bohemian existence with somewhat conventional dom- estic roles. Her father was a pater familias, whose whims and preferences ruled the household, while her mother attended to the minutiae of home life, exercising her considerable graphic talents alongside collecting mushrooms, bottling fruits and tending to her children.

Moomintroll, Tove's central character, first emerged in Garm in 1940 as a satirical figure, evolving, slightly plumper, into the first novel (still untranslated). By the 1950s, the Moomins had taken on their familiar characteristics, with marked resemblances to Jansson's own family. They are essentially bohemian, taking in their stride the endless string of relatives, visitors and marginal wanderers who drop by to benefit from Moominmamma's cooking, domestic stability and useful items in her ever-present handbag. Moominpappa, with no visible means of support, alternates between writing his memoirs and sudden whims. In Moominpappa At Sea (1965), he suddenly uproots the whole family because he feels depressed.

As children's stories, the Moomin novels are funny, and beautifully drawn with strong narratives. But there is also a deeper resonance for adults. Moominland is strongly evocative of real Nordic landscapes, especially the dense forests and tiny coastal archipelagos. There is also a powerful evocation of life lived close to nature, with the seasonal gathering of foods and feast, and the effect of the seasons on emotions. In Moominland Midwinter (1957), Moomintroll, who cannot hibernate, encounters a cast of characters who take over his house, and among whom he becomes sad and displaced.

The characters are surprisingly complex and plausible. The central characters, Moomintroll and the Snork Maiden, in spite of shy romantic feelings, are more like siblings, and full of sexual ambiguity. Spin-off marketing in Scandinavia, where the Moomins are very popular, have coloured the characters blue and pink, though in the original drawings the only difference is a fringe.

There is also a large cast of marginal characters, such as Snufkin, the charismatic artist, who wanders with the seasons, only occasionally accepting friendship. The appropriately named Creep adores Snufkin, and the Muskrat spends his time philosophising and denouncing domesticity, while happily availing himself of Moominmamma's hospitality. Little My is an anarchic child.

Sometimes, Jansson's characters border on the sinister, like the Hemulens, who are always officials, or the strange Hattifatners, who move in a singleminded, menacing crowd. Novelist Alison Lurie has described the Groke, a dark, mound-shaped creature with staring eyes, as "a kind of walking manifestation of Scandinavian gloom; everything she touches dies, and the ground freezes wherever she sits."

The sexual ambiguity of Moominworld is perhaps unsurprising given that Tove herself had several female lovers. Her lifetime companion was Tuulikka Pietelä, a well-known artist and professor of graphics on whom the character of Too-ticky was based. Together with their mothers, she and Tove also collaborated on a series of tableaux of the Moomins, now in the Tampere Moomin museum in Finland. It is arguable that Tove's sexual history also influenced the Moomin themes of personal freedom, tolerance and finding your true self that run through some of her adult novels.

Recently, her creation has suffered the fate of many successful children's books. She sold the rights to her creations to a Japanese business to finance medical treatment. There are now two Moominland theme parks, in Finland and Japan, and a cartoon in which Moomins speak through their mouths (though no Moomin has a mouth) in American accents. Perhaps Tove's death may provide the moment for a reappraisal, so the next generation of children can meet the Moomins as she created them: whimsical, complex, funny.

Tove Jannson, writer and illustrator, born August 9 1914; died June 27 2001