For thirty summers Tove and her partner, the graphic artist, Tuulikki Pietilä, retreated to the tiny island of Klovharun, a rocky outcrop in the gulf of Finland, where they would live, paint and write, energised by the shifting seascapes and the island's austere charms. Notes from an Island, offers both a memoir of, and homage to, this beloved island home. Tove's spare prose, and Tuulikki's subtle washes and aquatints, combine to form a work of meditative beauty.

This edition includes the first UK publication of Tove's acclaimed 1961 essay/prose poem, The Island.

The writer and artist Tove Jansson (1914-2001) is best known as the creator of the Moomin stories, which were first published in English sixty years ago and have remained in print ever since. She finished the sequence in 1970 and went on to write a dozen novels and story collections, most famously The Summer Book. Sort Of Books publish almost all of her work in English, as well as her letters and an authorised biography by Boel Westin.

Tove Jansson's most personal book and a homage by two artists to the island they loved.

In her late-forties, Tove Jansson, helped by a maverick seaman called Brunström, raced to build a cabin on an almost barren outcrop of rock in the Gulf of Finland. The island was Klovharun, and for twenty-six summers Tove and her life partner, the graphic artist Tuulikki Pietilä, retreated there to live, paint and write, energised by the solitude and shifting seascapes.

Notes from an Island, published in English for the first time, is both a memoir and homage to the island the two women loved intensely and relinquished only when pressed by age. It is also a unique collaboration between two artists. Tove's spare, precise prose - diary entries, vignettes and extracts from Brunström's log - frame the subtle washes and aquatints created by Tuulikki. Together they form a work of meditative beauty.