Tove Jansson drew her first Moomin on an outhouse wall, before committing Moominvalley to the page in the 1940s. This book offers a fresh, insightful appreciation of her life and art, from imaginative child to art student, painter, author, cartoonist and illustrator, bohemian lesbian and Finnish cultural icon. Jansson’s flourishing Moomin books are examined in detail, as are her interpretations of such classics as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark, and J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit.