Plucky young rebel

Pippi Longstocking is a nine-year-old girl who lives alone with a monkey and horse in a cottage called Villa Villekulla at the edge of a village close to the sea in an unnamed part of Sweden. She is a tender-hearted braggart, brilliant but unlettered, with a punning, pulling-the-rug wit. She lives as she likes — sleeping with her shoes on the pillow is something children always remember about Pippi, along with the carrot-coloured plaits at right ankles to her freckled face and her superhuman strength.

Pippi burst upon the world in 1945 and her main adventures were over by 1950 — a few later books elaborated on scenes already laid down. Her creator was a previously unknown writer of occasional magazine stories who had been born into a farming community in southern Sweden and moved to Stockholm in her teens. She had worked as a secretary before marrying in 1931 and settling down to a life as a stay-at-home wife and mother.