Tove Marika Jansson (1914–2001) was raised in an artistic, Swedish-speaking household in Helsinki, the daughter of the Finnish sculptor Viktor Jansson and the Swedish-born illustrator and graphic artist Signe Hammarsten-Jansson. 

Summers were often spent among the islands of the Gulf of Finland, a coastal and archipelagic landscape that would later inform the geography and atmosphere of Moominvalley. Jansson trained as an artist and worked as a painter, cartoonist, and commercial illustrator, while the Moomin series, begun during the Second World War partly as an imaginative refuge from its brutal realities, gradually found a large international audience. 

Her other work includes illustrations for the 1962 Swedish edition of 

. The world of the Moomins has since been adapted across media, including television and film, and Jansson’s work is now recognised as one of the major achievements of twentieth-century children’s literature and illustration.