Tove Jansson after Tove had become an adult, the two often traveled together, and during her final years Signe also lived with Tove part-time. Jansson is principally known as the author of the Moomin books. Jansson created the Moomins, a family of trolls who are white, round and smooth in appearance, with large snouts that make them vaguely resemble hippopotamuses. The first Moomin book, "The Moomins and the Great Flood", was written in 1945. Although the primary characters are Moominmamma and Moomintroll, most of the principal characters of later stories were only introduced in the next book, so "The Moomins and the
Tove Jansson Flood". The next two books, "Comet in Moominland" and "Finn Family Moomintroll", published in 1946 and 1948 respectively, were highly successful in sales, adding to sales of the first book. For her work as a children's writer she received the Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1966. Starting with the semi-autobiographical "Bildhuggarens dotter" ("Sculptor's Daughter") in 1968, Jansson wrote six novels, including the admired "Sommarboken" ("The Summer Book"), and five books of short stories for adults. Tove Jansson was born in Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland, Russian Empire. Her family, part of the Swedish-speaking minority of Finland, was an artistic one: