Finn Family Moomintroll
core novel 1948 The Moomins
Record
| Original title | Trollkarlens hatt |
|---|---|
| First published | 1948 |
| Original language |  SV |
| First English translation | 1950 |
| Translator | Elizabeth Portch |
| Work type | novel |
| Canon status | core |
| Reader rating | 4.30 (20,129 ratings, collected 2026-10-06) |
| Page count | 176 |
| First-edition ISBN | 9780312608897 |
| Internal chronology | 3 |
Synopsis
One spring, Moomintroll, Snufkin and Sniff find a tall black hat on a mountaintop and take it home, not knowing that it belongs to the Hobgoblin and that anything placed inside it is transformed into something else: eggshells become clouds the children can ride on, river water becomes raspberry juice, and Moomintroll himself, hiding in the hat during a game, comes out so changed that his own mother does not recognise him. Through a summer of magic, Thingumy and Bob arrive with a mysterious suitcase pursued by the terrifying Groke, the Muskrat philosophises, and the whole of Moominvalley gathers for a great party at which the Hobgoblin at last arrives on his black panther and grants everyone a wish. The first Moomin book published in English, and for many readers the series' defining volume.
Where it sits
- Universe: The Moomins
- Series: The Moomins core; position 3 of 9 in the series' recorded order
- Author: Tove Jansson
Notes
- From the series record (The Moomins): Tove Jansson's nine Moomin books (1945-1970), written in Swedish in Finland and illustrated by the author: the Moomin family of Moominvalley and their friends, from the comet, the Hobgoblin's hat and the flooded theatre of the early comedies to the winter, the sea and the empty house of the darker late novels.
Neighbouring works
Publication order and internal chronology are tracked as two separate orderings, but they resolve to the exact same sequence for this book, so one combined line is shown instead of two identical ones.
- Reading order, within the series The Moomins: position 3 of 9: previous Comet in Moominland (1946) · next Moominpappa's Memoirs (1950)
Sources
← The Moomins dossier · All universes
Part of the Library. Fields without an identified source are omitted, never guessed.