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The lamp sizzled as it burned. It made everything seem close and safe, a little family circle they all knew and trusted. Outside this circle lay everything that was strange and frightening, and the darkness seemed to reach higher and higher and further and further away, right to the end of the world.

The lamp sizzled as it burned. It made everything seem close and safe, a little family circle they all knew and trusted. Outside this circle lay everything that was strange and frightening, and the darkness seemed to reach higher and higher and further and further away, right to the end of the world.

Approximate author period: c. 1957 AD · modern

Meaning not yet available

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Tove Jansson
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1957 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1914 to 2001; Wikidata Q102071, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q102071 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 126783; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.