A Talk with the Tolkienist #0001: Sonja Virta and Tove Jansson’s illustrations of “The Hobbit”

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It gives me great pleasure and it is an absolute honour to have this amazing guest to start my new podcast, A Talk with the Tolkienist: Sonja Virta from Finland.

Please note There are one or two odd little sounds popping up during this recording but hopefully they will not distract you too much.

Biography: Sonja Virta

Sonja Virta (“Heathertoes”), MA, is a doctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Finland, studying the post-publication revisions made to Finnish Tolkien translations. Her MA thesis discussed the translation strategies used in the Finnish translations of “The Lord of the Rings” and the parody “Bored of the Rings”. As an independent Tolkien scholar, she studied, e.g. Tove Jansson’s illustrations for “The Hobbit”.

She is a former chairperson of The Finnish Tolkien Society and is currently responsible for academic affairs. She is also a founding member (2007) and a former board member of the Tove Jansson Society in Finland.

Show Notes

Most of these show notes have been kindly enough provided by Sonja Virta - thank you very much!

Further below you’ll find some books to get if you want to dive in more!

Sonja’s tips for the Tove Jansson podcast episode about “The Hobbit” illustrations

Books and articles

Boel Westin (published in Swedish in 2007, English translation in 2014) Tove Jansson: Life, Art, Words: The Authorised Biography (translated from Swedish by Silvester Mazzarella).

The official biography by Boel Westin covers the basics of Jansson’s work regarding The Hobbit. A couple of errors, however: the text does not take the 1994 Swedish edition into account when stating that the only Swedish edition with Jansson’s illustrations was the first edition from 1962. Please also disregard the claim that critics didn’t like the illustrations: this has been debunked by Björn Sundmark (see below). Westin unfortunately doesn’t mention the Finnish editions at all.

Olga Holownia (2014) “Hell, what a chance to have a go at the classics”: Tove Jansson’s take on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, The Hunting of the Snark, and The Hobbit. Barnboken, 37. Freely available at: https://doi.org/10.14811/clr.v37i0.191 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Hołownia analyses Snark, Hobbit and Alice in terms of Jansson’s approach to illustrating them, e.g. in relation to horror and the Moomins.

Björn Sundmark (2014) ”En hobbit och ett mumintroll skulle kunna mötas i bästa sämja”: Receptionen av Bilbo, en hobbits äventyr (1962). Barnboken, 37. Freely available at: https://doi.org/10.14811/clr.v37i0.186 (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

If you understand Swedish, have a look at what Swedish critics in the 1960s actually said about the illustrations as well as some interesting points about changes related to fantasy and how to illustrate it.

Sonja Virta (2025) Hompen as the source text for Tove Jansson’s illustrations for The Hobbit. Published in Proceedings of the Tolkien 2019 Conference.

This is my own article which seeks out to find out if Jansson read Hompen, i.e. the somewhat abridged first Swedish translation of the Hobbit, which was also missing bits of the Gollum storyline due to it being based on Tolkien’s original version of the text. My analysis is based on the unpublished notes Jansson made when planning her illustrations: these haven’t been previously studied. I also analyse what type of an effect Hompen may have had on Jansson’s work – including that dreadfully large Gollum.
- Note, however, that due to an editorial mistake, the article published in the book is not the version intended for publication but an earlier draft. Hence the article has some minor errors and it is generally not as well written as my final version.

Brian Sibley (2015) ‘From Moominland to Middle-earth’, in The Official Tolkien Calendar 2016, illustrated by Tove Jansson.

In his foreword to the calendar, Sibley draws from Westin’s account supplementing it with some compelling observations of his own. Sibley’s text has also been published in Finnish in a slightly edited form as the afterword to some newer editions of Hobitti, i.e. the Finnish translation.

Scull, Christina & Hammond, Wayne G. (2017). “Illustration”. Published in: C. Scull & W. G. Hammond: The J.R.R. Tolkien Companion and Guide II: Reader’s Guide, part 1: A-M. Revised and expanded edition.

The absent Jansson: Scull and Hammond discuss Tolkien illustrations and what Tolkien said about them, including examining Tolkien’s opinions on many illustrations from the 1960s. Yet Jansson is only mentioned in passing with no reference to Tolkien himself. I'm certain the authors would have included more than just her name if they had had believable evidence of Tolkien’s opinion on her work!

Links

Tove Janssonin Hobitti
https://www.artsimuseo.com/tove-janssonin-hobitti (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Check the photo of Jansson’s notes and sketches for Chapter 6! The Artsi art museum held an exhibit back in 2018. I gave two talks there and begun analysing Jansson’s notes that had been on display, resulting in several new presentations and the article.

“For me it was an adventure to illustrate J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit” – all you need to know about Tove Janssons criticised illustrations
https://tovejansson.com/hobbit-tolkien/ (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

A couple of illustrations (check out the cut-and-paste ones!) and some basic information based on Westin’s biography. It’s far too short to be “all you need to know”, though, and you should take some bits of the text with a pinch of salt – especially the claim on Tolkien’s reaction and subsequent actions appears to be unfounded.

Von aufmüpfigen Trollen und bösen Ratten (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Babelwerk (German; on the issues of translating Jansson into German)

A tribute to Tove (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Brian Sibley

Tove Jansson exhibition at the Brooklyn Public Library (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) (2025)

A new animated Moomin film is in the works in Hollywood (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Official Moomin website

‘Steven Universe’ Creator Rebecca Sugar To Helm ‘Moomin’ Animated Feature For Annapurna (Öffnet in neuem Fenster). Cartoon Brew