# Is "Finn Family Moomintroll (Trollkarlens hatt)" by Tove Jansson a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Finn Family Moomintroll (Trollkarlens hatt) by Tove Jansson (Holger Schildts Förlag, 1948) is identified by: No printing statement or number line is documented for this book; identification rests on the imprint, the date and the collation. The Swedish-language Finnish edition — Schildts, Helsingfors, 1948 — is the true first, and the census claim is confirmed: Jansson was a Swedish-speaking Finn and her Moomin firsts are Swedish-language Finnish imprints.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- No printing statement or number line is documented for this book; identification rests on the imprint, the date and the collation
- The Swedish-language first: Trollkarlens hatt, Holger Schildts Förlag, Helsingfors, 1948 — 164 pp., quarter cloth over illustrated boards with the pictorial upper cover, illustrated throughout by Jansson with vignettes and full-page drawings and a map at the title
- The first English edition — Finn Family Moomintroll, Ernest Benn Limited, London, 1950, translated by Elizabeth Portch — is in publisher's green cloth with red titling and illustration to the upper board and spine, with a large folding map and Jansson's illustrations throughout, in a pictorial dust jacket (the scarcest element) carrying a Snork Maiden image to the rear flap and the price present at the flap
- Because no impression statement is recorded, check any candidate Schildts copy for a later date or a later "upplaga" statement; a 1948-dated Schildts imprint in the collation above is the first
- Publisher imprint reads Holger Schildts Förlag
- Not a book-club edition (see below)

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Tove Jansson |
| Publisher | Holger Schildts Förlag |
| Year | 1948 |
| True first | US edition |
| Format | Children's / illustrated |
| Key point | No printing statement or number line is documented for this book; identification rests on the imprint, the date and the collation |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
No printing statement or number line is documented for this book; identification rests on the imprint, the date and the collation. The Swedish-language first: Trollkarlens hatt, Holger Schildts Förlag, Helsingfors, 1948 — 164 pp., quarter cloth over illustrated boards with the pictorial upper cover, illustrated throughout by Jansson with vignettes and full-page drawings and a map at the title. The first English edition — Finn Family Moomintroll, Ernest Benn Limited, London, 1950, translated by Elizabeth Portch — is in publisher's green cloth with red titling and illustration to the upper board and spine, with a large folding map and Jansson's illustrations throughout, in a pictorial dust jacket (the scarcest element) carrying a Snork Maiden image to the rear flap and the price present at the flap. Because no impression statement is recorded, check any candidate Schildts copy for a later date or a later "upplaga" statement; a 1948-dated Schildts imprint in the collation above is the first.

## Is this the true first?
The Swedish-language Finnish edition — Schildts, Helsingfors, 1948 — is the true first, and the census claim is confirmed: Jansson was a Swedish-speaking Finn and her Moomin firsts are Swedish-language Finnish imprints. Trollkarlens hatt is the THIRD Moomin book, not the first (Småtrollen och den stora översvämningen, 1945, precedes it, as does Kometjakten, 1946) — the census note is correct on this. The first English edition is Ernest Benn, London, 1950, translated by Elizabeth Portch; it was Benn's choice to launch the series with this title, and it was marketed as the series opener in English until the 1980s, which is why it is widely and wrongly taken for the first Moomin book. Both the Schildts 1948 and the Benn 1950 are collected. The first US appearance is under a different title — The Happy Moomins, 1951 — and the US publisher could not be confirmed.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition documented in the sources consulted. Two cautions. First, a title trap: The Happy Moomins (US, 1951) is the same text under a changed title, and the English title itself was the UK publisher's invention. Second, a text-state caution — Jansson is reported to have revised both the text and the illustrations of Trollkarlens hatt, the revised version being current by 1968; the sources consulted do not date the revision precisely or itemise the changes, so treat this as reported rather than confirmed, and do not assume a modern reprint carries the 1948 setting.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Finn Family Moomintroll (Trollkarlens hatt)* by Tove Jansson a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/finn-family-moomintroll-trollkarlens-hatt
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.