I enjoyed reading these letters. Tove Jansson wrote letters her entire life. The book begins with letters she wrote home while at school. The letters offer a wonderful slice of life of her growth as a woman and an artist. Even if you are not familiar with the Moomin book you will still enjoy this read. Enjoy

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and give an honest review of this book.

Tove Jansson is the artist famous for the much loved Moomins. She came to my attention through her books and videos of them. This book is an interesting glimpse into her life from 1932 to 1988. She is a prolific letter writer and she includes family and friends in her collection of papers.

In a time when letter writing is rare and electronic and instant messages are the main forms of communication, it is refreshing to read a well written note or letter. We are able to take a peek at over fifty years of history through one woman’s eyes.

I never really had the opportunity to get into the Moominverse, but I have friends who are, so that curiosity led me to this book. Jansson's maturity progresses visibly as things progress from her art student days in Paris to making a living as an artist during wartime. The amount of terms left untranslated but defined after some letters is helpful but also got annoying as it all added up. Still, for what is basically an epistolary biography, this is good, but also perhaps too much detail that one may ever want to know about Jansson.

What a treasure, to have these letters from one of the great creators! Jansson’s portrayals of life and love offer an intimate look at the hopes and obstacles she faced in her education, career, friendships, and love life.

This volume edited by Boel Westin (Jansson’s biographer) and Helen Svensson and translated by Sarah Death includes a selection of 160 of Tove’s surviving letters held in private and public collections. Tove was a regular and detailed correspondent but this book acknowledges that close friends have destroyed her personal correspondence. Each letter grouping has a description putting them in context of her life, but other than that the reader has little idea where the individual letters sit within her corpus. Nevertheless even to the relatively ill-informed (this reviewer) they show aspects of her life clearly and, in the early parts at least, form a compulsive and attractive read before the need for later coverage dictates harder choices.
Unless they have spotted the brilliant collection of her writing published recently by Sort Of Books, most people will associate the name Tove Jansson with her writing s on “The Moomins” who became international “superstars” in the ‘40s. Tove produced both text and illustrations. Never having been attracted to the books themselves the information on their context as first children’s ,then crossover, tales and their political context had completely failed me – another re-read is due. As the “wrong age” I was unaware that there were widely syndicated cartoon strips – or that they provided Tove with her first regular guaranteed income, offset by the need to concentrate on Moomins at the expense of her other art and writing projects. Ironically the business pressures of her rising international prominence seemed to put a stop to the scale of her private letters, the pressure clear in these letters
In this volume the letters are clustered by their recipients in date order. Early on Tove would write to those close to her (family, friends, lovers – many of them artists or writers) and when she was away from them. The early letters are from France and Italy. They show her as a student selecting art across genres, but with mentions of her writing to generate income. They are chatty, giving strong impressions of her life away, how busy she was and her choices she was starting to make. But they show her awareness of increasing independence of living as a “single” rather than as one of her close creative family.
A cluster of letters is to friend Eva Konikoff, photographer – who emigrated to the US. The editors make clear Tove used her letters to her (some possibly never sent due to the war) to explore her thoughts on her developing artistic and private life. The impact of the war as it affected Finland and its horrendous losses are touched on and hint at the personal trauma that would have followed. Throughout we see her not always easy relationship with her family, her demanding father a sculptor with alcohol problems and her mother an artist too – but who compromised on her chosen work to keep an income coming into the household. Later a younger brother who would eventually settle into the “Moomin business”. But her family and their need for cross support in both artistic projects and basic things was always central to her life
Letters show Tove's underlying need to find a secure lover to spend her life with. A male partner will disappear; short term others will pass through the letters until eventually in 1955 Tove will meet and settle to a forty year relationship with artist Tuulicki Pietila. The letters will show her difficulties balancing this with her closeness to her family. Complicated by Tove’s increasing need to establish her quiet island life style as a spur to her creativity but melded with her partner’s need to find inspiration often elsewhere. All this at a time when homosexuality was illegal, frowned upon or largely hidden.
While this volume displays its “academic” provenance and role it is nonetheless a brilliant depiction of a hugely creative woman multi tasking and not just in her art. We see the scale and range of her commissions cutting across her other creative impulses and choices in both art and her writing. Although “single” and “childless” she was deeply embedded in her family. Coming from a difficult home life she eventually finds herself a settled place to live, within a quiet local rural community, with a loving partner from which she took great pleasure. They say a woman cannot have it all, but Tove worked hard and seemingly came close. This makes for a compelling read as we see the real woman, from a quiet country, set against the history of the 20th century and the sheer scale of her international artistic achievements. It forms a fine accompaniment to the increasing range of Tove’s writings from the Sort Of Books Press. And points to her quiet genius in creating such calm and controlled prose when involved in so much juggling of hours and days. Truly inspirational.

Tove wrote letters, lots of letters.  They were to family, friends, readers and more.  Of these the editors include 160  written between 1932 and 1988.  Each section of the book begins with an introduction that helps to place the letters in context.  For example, in letters to family, it is noted that Tove left Helsinki to study in Stockholm and also spent time in Paris and Italy.  The book includes photographs of Tove and those to whom she wrote.  There are also drawings, as for instance, a map of a Paris neighborhood, an outfit that Tove wore or some of her art. 

This book will be welcomed by fans of the Moomin series who would like to know the author better.  It will also appeal to anyone who enjoys the insights to be found in the letters that people write.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this title in exchange for an honest review.

My Canadian childhood had no exposure to Moomin stories. As an adult with young children, I found Tove Jansson’s beloved books in my local library branch. I’ve read several Moomin books as well as two autobiographies and three of her adult fiction books. “The Summer Book” is an exceptionally exquisite novel. So, I came to this letter collection with a modest amount of knowledge but much respect for Tove Jansson.
Tove Jansson was a unique spirit – engaging and independent and so brightly curious. Her correspondence was a pleasure to read. I learned much about her early student days, her struggles with her art and creative writing. But, I was particularly inspired by her letter-writing habit itself. In the age of tweets and texts, the depth of her letters was impressive.
The University of Minnesota Press has curated a remarkable collection of correspondence. The thoughtful and detailed introduction at start of each chapter was appreciated. As another reviewer mentioned – the abbreviations and footnotes provided were also extremely helpful. I found these additions just as fascinating as Jansson’s correspondence.
I would recommend this collection of letters for anyone who wishes to learn more about the person and creative artist and writer, Tove Jansson. #LettersfromTove #NetGalley

This review will be published on my Goodreads account on March 1st 2020.

Being Swedish, Tove Jansson’s Moomin stories were a great part of my childhood and her books, poems, illustrations and prose (especially Höstvisa, such a beautiful text!) are still a huge part of my life and something I come back to now and then. That being said, I realised, reading this collection of letters sent to people in her life that I knew next to nothing about Jansson as a person. I’d been so engaged in her works (primarily Moomin) that I’d never really thought about who she was. And that’s why I enjoyed this book so much as it gave me that part of Jansson that I hadn’t really thought about before. She lived an interesting life and you could really feel the love, the compassion, the creative spirit that she possessed through these letters to the people nearest and dearest to her.

Tove Jansson seems, by reading her letters, to be a most pleasant person. Full of heart, writing beautifully long letters about her everyday life and being interested in what the other person’s doing and how they are. This book is full of heart. It was interesting to read about occupied Finland during WW2 in this way, something I’ve never done before (although I’ve read loads about occupied Norway during the same time period), and reading about her joy of being sent coffee and chocolates from her friend Eva Konikoff just after the War ended.

I did enjoy the short descriptions made after each chapters explaining some of Jansson’s abbreviations and to get some more information on the people mentioned as well as translations of untranslatable Finnish and Swedish words. As someone who has lived in Stockholm their whole life her descriptions of Stockholm were interesting to me as an individual, especially the observations about the Klarakvarteren!
This is a most beautiful book about an author who produced so many stories and texts in different mediums. I felt like I got to know her personally, which I guess I did, considering these are – mostly – all personal letters being sent off (perhaps not with the intent of being published in this way?) but I’m happy that I got to read this and learn more about this fascinating person and author.

An intimate look at Tove Janssons life ,friendship, work .Her letters share all from highs and lows work & personal- told in her wonderful style,.A treasure trove of letters that kept me totally involved .#netgalley#uofminnesota

Huge thanks for making this available to me. Unfortunately I am unable to read PDFs and can only read on my kindle. Is there any possibility this could be made available for Kindle? I was really looking forwarding to reading this and so disappointed that I am unable to do so. Thanks again for making this available to me, just sorry I cannot take advantage of your kind offer.