The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a
children's novelChildren's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
written by
L. Frank BaumLyman Frank Baum was an American author of children's books, best known for writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
and illustrated by
W. W. DenslowWilliam Wallace Denslow – usually credited as W. W. Denslow – was an illustrator and caricaturist remembered for his work in collaboration with author L. Frank Baum, especially his illustrations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
. Originally published by the
George M. Hill CompanyGeorge M. Hill Company was a publishing company based in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 1893 by George M. Hill, who learned the book-binding trade through an apprenticeship....
in Chicago on May 17, 1900, it has since been reprinted numerous times, most often under the name
The Wizard of Oz, which is the name of both the 1902 stage play and the
1939 film versionThe Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
. The story chronicles the adventures of a young girl named
Dorothy GaleDorothy Gale is the protagonist of many of the Oz novels by American author L. Frank Baum, and the best friend of Oz's ruler Princess Ozma. Dorothy first appears in Baum's classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels...
in the
Land of OzOz is a fantasy region containing four lands under the rule of one monarch.It was first introduced in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, one of many fantasy countries that he created for his books. It achieved a popularity that none of his other works attained, and after four years, he...
, after being swept away from her Kansas farm home in a storm. Thanks in part to the 1939 MGM movie, it is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. Its initial success, and the success of the popular 1902 Broadway musical which Baum adapted from his original story, led to Baum's writing thirteen more Oz books. The original book has been in the
public domainWorks are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
in the US since 1956.
Baum dedicated the book "to my good friend & comrade, My Wife",
Maud Gage BaumMaud Gage Baum was the wife of L. Frank Baum. Her mother was the suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage. In her early life, she attended a boys' high school and was raised to be headstrong....
. In January 1901, George M. Hill Company, the publisher, completed printing the first edition, which probably totaled around 35,000 copies. Records indicate that 21,000 copies were sold through 1900. Historians, economists and literary scholars have examined and developed possible
political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of OzPolitical interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz include treatments of the modern fairy tale as an allegory or metaphor for the political, economic and social events of America in the 1890s...
. However, the majority of the reading public simply takes the story at face value.
Background
Born on May 15, 1856, in a
frame houseFraming, in construction known as light-frame construction, is a building technique based around structural members, usually called studs, which provide a stable frame to which interior and exterior wall coverings are attached, and covered by a roof comprising horizontal ceiling joists and sloping...
in
Chittenango, New YorkChittenango is a village located in Madison County, New York, in the United States. The village is in the south part of the Town of Sullivan. The population was 5,081 at the 2010 census.- History :...
, Lyman Frank Baum was the seventh child of Cynthia Stanton and Benjamin Ward Baum, an affluent oil baron. Raised in Rose Lawn, the Baum country property on the outskirts of
SyracuseSyracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
, Baum had a sheltered upbringing. As a child, he was extremely bashful and was diagnosed with a deficient heart. Baum spent considerable time playing with his imaginary friends and reading books. When he was 15 years old, he and Harry, a younger brother produced The Rose Lawn Home Journal. When he was 18 years old, Baum spent much time around local theaters and hoped to pursue acting. Though his father initially opposed his dream, he later capitulated. Baum traveled through different states and worked at various jobs to support his acting career.
In 1882, Baum married
Maud GageMaud Gage Baum was the wife of L. Frank Baum. Her mother was the suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage. In her early life, she attended a boys' high school and was raised to be headstrong....
, daughter of suffragist
Matilda Joslyn GageMatilda Electa Joslyn Gage was a suffragist, a Native American activist, an abolitionist, a freethinker, and a prolific author, who was "born with a hatred of oppression".-Early activities:...
. His mother-in-law believed that Baum was idealistic and wrote in a letter that he was "a perfect baby". However, she urged him to put to paper the many tales he had related to his sons for many years. Maud Gage, a practical woman, served as a foil to Baum. She was consistent and wary of their finances, complementing her husband, an imaginative dreamer.
Publication
Published by
George M. Hill CompanyGeorge M. Hill Company was a publishing company based in Chicago, Illinois. It was founded in 1893 by George M. Hill, who learned the book-binding trade through an apprenticeship....
, the novel's first edition had a printing of 10,000 copies and was sold in advance of the publication date of September 1, 1900. By October 1900, the first edition had already sold out and the second edition of 15,000 copies was nearly depleted.
In a letter to his brother Harry, Baum wrote that the book's publisher, George M. Hill, predicted a sale of about 250,000 copies. In spite of this favorable conjecture, Hill did not initially predict the book would be phenomenally successful. He agreed to publish the book only when the manager of the Grand Opera House, Fred R. Hamlin, committed to making The Wizard of Oz into
a playThe Wizard of Oz was a 1902 musical extravaganza based on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, which was originally published in 1900...
to publicize the novel. After Hill's publishing company became bankrupt in 1901, Baum and Denslow agreed to have the Indiannapolis-based
Bobbs-Merrill CompanyThe Bobbs-Merrill Company was a book publisher located in Indianapolis, Indiana. Bobbs-Merrill was known for publishing such authors as Richard Halliburton, David Markson, Ayn Rand, James Whitcomb Riley, Walter Dean Myers, and Irma S. Rombauer. Bobbs-Merrill also published the early works of...
resume publishing the novel.
Baum's son
Harry NealHarry Neal Baum is an American author and the third son of L. Frank Baum. His father dedicated his 1902 novel The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus to him....
told the
Chicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
in 1944 that he told his children "whimsical stories before they became material for his books". Harry called his father the "swellest man I knew", a man who was able to give a decent reason as to why black birds cooked in a pie could afterwards get out and sing.
By 1938, over one million copies of the book had been printed. Less than two decades later, in 1956, the sales of his novel grew to 3 million copies in print.
Plot summary
DorothyDorothy Gale is the protagonist of many of the Oz novels by American author L. Frank Baum, and the best friend of Oz's ruler Princess Ozma. Dorothy first appears in Baum's classic children's novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and reappears in most of its sequels...
is an orphan raised by her Uncle Henry and
Aunt EmAunt Em is a fictional character from the Oz books. She is the aunt of Dorothy Gale and wife of Uncle Henry, and lived together with them on a farm in Kansas...
in the bleak landscape of a Kansas farm. She has a little black dog Toto, who is her sole source of happiness on the dry, gray prairies. One day the farmhouse, with Dorothy and Toto inside, is caught up in a
tornadoA tornado is a violent, dangerous, rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as a twister or a cyclone, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology in a wider...
and deposited in a field in
Munchkin CountryMunchkin Country is the Eastern region in the fictional Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. In Wizard it was originally called "the land of Munchkins", and "Munchkin Country" in all subsequent Oz books...
, the eastern quadrant of the
Land of OzOz is a fantasy region containing four lands under the rule of one monarch.It was first introduced in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, one of many fantasy countries that he created for his books. It achieved a popularity that none of his other works attained, and after four years, he...
. The falling house kills the evil ruler of the Munchkins, the
Wicked Witch of the EastThe Wicked Witch of the East is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum in his Oz series of books....
.
The
Good Witch of the NorthThe Good Witch of the North is a fictional character in the Land of Oz, created by American author L. Frank Baum. She is the elderly and mild-mannered Ruler of the Gillikin Country...
comes with the Munchkins to greet Dorothy and gives Dorothy the
silver shoesThe Silver Shoes are the magical shoes that appear in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as Dorothy Gale's transport home. They were originally owned by the Wicked Witch of the East but passed to Dorothy when her house landed on the Witch...
(believed to have magical properties) that the
Wicked WitchThe Wicked Witch of the East is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum in his Oz series of books....
had been wearing when she was killed. In order to return to Kansas, the Good Witch of the North tells Dorothy that she will have to go to the "
Emerald CityThe Emerald City is the fictional capital city of the Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
" or "City of Emeralds" and ask the Wizard of Oz to help her.
On her way down the
yellow brick roadThe road of yellow brick is an element in the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, with additional such roads appearing in The Marvelous Land of Oz and The Patchwork Girl of Oz...
, Dorothy frees the
ScarecrowThe Scarecrow is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum and illustrator William Wallace Denslow. In his first appearance, the Scarecrow reveals that he lacks a brain and desires above all else to have one. In reality, he is only two days old and merely...
from the pole he is hanging on, restores the movements of the rusted
Tin WoodmanThe Tin Woodman, sometimes referred to as the Tin Man or the Tin Woodsman , is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum...
with an
oil canAn oil can is a can that holds oil for lubricating machines. An oil can can also be used to fill oil-based lanterns...
, and encourages them and the
Cowardly LionThe Cowardly Lion is the main character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum. He is a Lion, but he talks and interacts with humans....
to journey with her and Toto to the Emerald City. The Scarecrow wants to get a brain, the Tin Woodman a heart, and the Cowardly Lion, courage. All are convinced by Dorothy that the Wizard can help them too. Together, they overcome obstacles on the way including narrow pieces of the yellow brick road, Kalidahs, a river, and the Deadly Poppies.
When the travelers arrive at the Emerald City, they are asked to use green spectacles by the Guardian of the Gates. When each traveler meets with the Wizard, he appears each time as someone or something different. To Dorothy, the Wizard is a giant head; the Scarecrow sees a beautiful woman; the Tin Woodman sees a ravenous beast; the Cowardly Lion sees a ball of fire. The Wizard agrees to help each of them, but only if one of them kills the
Wicked Witch of the WestThe Wicked Witch of the West is a fictional character and the most significant antagonist in L. Frank Baum's children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
who rules over the
Winkie CountryThe Winkie Country is a division of the fictional Land of Oz. It is distinguished by the color yellow; this color is worn by most of the local inhabitants and predominates in the surroundings....
.
As the friends travel across the Winkie Country, the Wicked Witch sends wolves, crows, bees, and then her Winkie soldiers to attack them, but they manage to get past them all. Then, using the power of the Golden Cap, the Witch summons the
Winged MonkeysWinged monkeys are characters from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, of enough impact between the books and the 1939 movie to have taken their own place in popular culture, regularly referenced in comedic or ironic situations as a source of evil or fear.-Details:In the original Oz novels, these were...
to capture Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion and Toto, and to destroy the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman.
When the Wicked Witch gains one of Dorothy's silver shoes by trickery, Dorothy in anger grabs a bucket of water and throws it on the Wicked Witch. To her shock, this causes the Witch to melt away. The Winkies rejoice at being freed of the witch's tyranny, and they help to reassemble the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. The Winkies love the Tin Woodman, and they ask him to become their ruler, which he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas.
Dorothy uses the Golden Cap to summon the Winged Monkeys to carry her and her companions back to the Emerald City, and the King of the Winged Monkeys tells how he and the other monkeys were bound by an enchantment to the cap by the sorceress Gayelette.
When Dorothy and her friends meet the Wizard of Oz again, he tries to put them off. Toto accidentally tips over a screen in a corner of the throne room, revealing the Wizard to be an ordinary old man who had journeyed to Oz from
OmahaOmaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River...
long ago in a hot air balloon. The Wizard has been longing to return to his home and be in a circus again ever since.
The Wizard provides the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion with a head full of bran, pins, and needles ("a lot of bran-new brains"), a silk heart stuffed with sawdust, and a potion of "courage", respectively. Because of their faith in the Wizard's power, these otherwise useless items provide a
focusPlacebo effect may refer to:* Placebo effect, the tendency of any medication or treatment, even an inert or ineffective one, to exhibit results simply because the recipient believes that it will work...
for their desires. In order to help Dorothy and Toto get home, the Wizard realizes that he will have to take them home with him in a new balloon, which he and Dorothy fashion from green silk. Revealing himself to the people of the Emerald City one last time, the Wizard appoints the Scarecrow, by virtue of his brains, to rule in his stead. Dorothy chases Toto after he runs after a kitten in the crowd, and before she can make it back to the balloon, the ropes break, leaving the Wizard to rise and float away alone.
Dorothy turns to the Winged Monkeys to carry her and Toto home, but they cannot cross the desert surrounding Oz, subsequently wasting her second wish. The
Soldier with the Green WhiskersThe Soldier with the Green Whiskers is a major character in the Oz books of L. Frank Baum and his successors. His name is Omby Amby, but this was so obliquely stated that he also became known briefly as Wantowin Battles.-Early appearances:...
advises that Glinda, the Good Witch of the South, may be able to send Dorothy and Toto home. They, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion journey to Glinda's palace in the
Quadling CountryThe Quadling Country is the southern division of L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz. It is distinguished by the color red, worn by most of the local inhabitants as well as the color of their surroundings. Like the Munchkin Country, the outer regions of the Quadling Country are rich, pleasant and...
. Together they escape the Fighting Trees, dodge the Hammer-Heads, and tread carefully through the China Country. The Cowardly Lion kills a giant spider, who is terrorizing the animals in a forest, and he agrees to return there to rule them after Dorothy returns to Kansas—the
Hungry TigerThe Hungry Tiger is a fictional character from The Oz books by L. Frank Baum.The Hungry Tiger is a massive beast who is friends with the Cowardly Lion. He is always hungry, no matter how much he eats, and longs to eat a "fat baby," though he never would because his conscience will not allow him to...
, the biggest of the tigers ruling in his stead as before. Dorothy uses her third wish to fly over the Hammer-Heads' mountain, almost losing Toto in the process.
At Glinda's palace, the travelers are greeted warmly, and it is revealed by Glinda that Dorothy had the power to go home all along. The Silver Shoes she wears can take her anywhere she wishes to go. She tearfully embraces her friends, all of whom will be returned, through Glinda's use of the Golden Cap, to their respective kingdoms: the Scarecrow to the Emerald City, the Tin Woodman to the Winkie Country, and the Cowardly Lion to the forest. Then she will give the Golden Cap to the king of the Winged Monkeys, so they will never be under its spell again. Having bid her friends farewell one final time, Dorothy taps her heels three times, and wishes to return home. When she opens her eyes, Dorothy and Toto have returned to Kansas to a joyful family reunion. The Silver Shoes are dropped in the
desertThe Deadly Desert is the magical desert that completely surrounds the fictional Land of Oz. On maps, the Eastern quadrant of the desert is called the Deadly Desert, while the other three quadrants of desert are called the Shifting Sands, the Impassable Desert, and the Great Sandy Waste.The desert...
during Dorothy's flight and never seen again (at least, in the official books).
Illustration and design
The book was illustrated by Baum's friend and collaborator
W. W. DenslowWilliam Wallace Denslow – usually credited as W. W. Denslow – was an illustrator and caricaturist remembered for his work in collaboration with author L. Frank Baum, especially his illustrations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
, who also co-held the copyright. The design was lavish for the time, with illustrations on every page, backgrounds in different colors, and several color plate illustrations. In September 1900, The Grand Rapids Herald wrote that Denslow's illustrations are "quite as much of the story as in the writing". The editorial opined that had it not been for Denslow's pictures, the readers would be unable to picture precisely the figures of Dorothy, Toto, and the other characters.
A new edition of the book appeared in 1944, with illustrations by Evelyn Copelman. Although it was claimed that the new illustrations were based on Denslow's originals, they more closely resemble the characters as seen in the famous
1939 film versionThe Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
of Baum's book, starring
Judy GarlandJudy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
,
Ray BolgerRaymond Wallace "Ray" Bolger was an American entertainer of stage and screen, best known for his portrayal of the Scarecrow and Kansas farmworker Hank in The Wizard of Oz.-Early life:...
,
Jack HaleyJohn Joseph "Jack" Haley was an American stage, radio, and film actor best known for his portrayal of the Tin Man and Kansas farmworker Hickory in The Wizard of Oz.-Career:...
, and
Bert LahrBert Lahr was an American actor and comedian. Lahr is remembered today for his roles as the Cowardly Lion and Kansas farmworker Zeke in The Wizard of Oz, but was also well-known for work in burlesque, vaudeville, and on Broadway.-Early life:Lahr was born in New York City, of German-Jewish heritage...
.
The distinctive look led to imitators at the time, most notably Eva Katherine Gibson's Zauberlinda, the Wise Witch, which mimicked both the typography and the illustration design of Oz. The typeface was the newly designed Monotype Old Style. Denslow's illustrations were so well-known that merchants of many products obtained permission to use them to promote their wares. The forms of the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, the Wizard, and Dorothy were made into rubber and metal sculptures. Costume jewelry, mechanical toys, and soap were also designed using their figures.
Themes
Baum explores the theme of self-contradiction in The Wizard of Oz. He created characters who—like humans—have complex, contradictory natures. The
ScarecrowThe Scarecrow is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum and illustrator William Wallace Denslow. In his first appearance, the Scarecrow reveals that he lacks a brain and desires above all else to have one. In reality, he is only two days old and merely...
, the
Tin WoodmanThe Tin Woodman, sometimes referred to as the Tin Man or the Tin Woodsman , is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum...
, and the
Cowardly LionThe Cowardly Lion is the main character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum. He is a Lion, but he talks and interacts with humans....
all lack self-confidence. The Scarecrow believes that he has no brains, though he comes up with clever solutions to several problems that they encounter on their journey. The Tin Woodman believes that he lacks a heart, but is moved to tears when misfortune befalls the various creatures they meet. The Cowardly Lion believes that he has no courage even though he is consistently brave through their journey.
Carl L. BankstonCarl L. Bankston III is an American sociologist and author. He is best known for his work on immigration to the United States, particularly on the adaptation of Vietnamese American immigrants, and for his work on ethnicity, social capital, sociology of religion and the sociology of...
, III of
Salem PressSalem Press is a publisher of reference works on literature, history and biography, the social sciences, and science. Salem Press publishes comprehensive, multivolume sets under its Salem Press imprint, and smaller, condensed titles under its Magill’s Choice imprint.Products include traditional...
noted that "These three characters embody the classical human virtues of intelligence, caring, and courage, but their self-doubts keep them from being reduced to mere symbols of these qualities."
By the end of novel, the characters attain self-fulfillment when they have met their objectives. To convince the characters they have the qualities they desire, the Wizard places an amalgamation of bran, pins, and needles in the Scarecrow's head to inspire intellect; gives a silk heart to the Tin Woodman to inspire love; and a drink to the Cowardly Lion to inspire bravery.
Sources of images and ideas
Baum acknowledged the influence of the
Brothers GrimmThe Brothers Grimm , Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm , were German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who collected folklore and published several collections of it as Grimm's Fairy Tales, which became very popular...
and
Hans Christian AndersenHans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
, which he was deliberately revising in his "American fairy tales" to include the wonder without the horrors.
Local legend has it that Oz, also known as The Emerald City, was inspired by a prominent castle-like building in the community of Castle Park near
Holland, MichiganHolland is a city in the western region of the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated near the eastern shore of Lake Michigan on Lake Macatawa, which is fed by the Macatawa River ....
where Baum summered. The yellow brick road was derived from a road at that time paved by yellow bricks. These bricks were found in Peekskill, New York where Baum attended the Peekskill Military Academy. Baum scholars often reference the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (the "White Town") as an inspiration for the Emerald City. Other legends allude that the inspiration came from the
Hotel Del CoronadoHotel del Coronado is a beachfront luxury hotel in the city of Coronado, just across the San Diego Bay from San Diego, California. It is one of the few surviving examples of an American architectural genre: the wooden Victorian beach resort...
near San Diego, California. Baum was a frequent guest at the hotel, and had written several of the Oz books there. In a 1903 interview with
Publishers WeeklyPublishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
, Baum said that the name "OZ" came from his file cabinet labeled "O-Z".
Alice in Wonderland
Another influence lay in
Lewis CarrollCharles Lutwidge Dodgson , better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll , was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the...
's
Alice in WonderlandAlice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
. A September 1900 review in the Grand Rapids Herald called The Wonderful Wizard of Oz a "veritable Alice in Wonderland brought up to the present day of standard of juvenile literature". Although Baum found their plots incoherent, he identified their source of popularity as
AliceAlice is a fictional character in the literary classic, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There. She is a young girl from Victorian-era Britain.-Development:...
herself, a child with whom the child readers could identify; this influenced his choice of a protagonist. Baum was also influenced by Carroll's belief that children's books should have many pictures and be pleasurable reads. Carroll rejected the Victorian-era ideology that children's books should be saturated with
moralA moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
s, instead believing that children should be allowed to be children. Building on Carroll's style of numerous images accompanying the text, Baum amalgamated the conventional features of a
fairy taleA fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
(witches and wizards) with the well-known things in his readers' lives (
scarecrowA scarecrow is, essentially, a decoy, though traditionally, a human figure dressed in old clothes and placed in fields by farmers to discourage birds such as crows or sparrows from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.-History:In Kojiki, the oldest surviving book in Japan...
s and cornfields).
Personal life
Many of the characters, props, and ideas in the novel were drawn from Baum's experiences. As a child, Baum frequently had nightmares of a scarecrow pursuing him across a field. Moments before the scarecrow's "ragged hay fingers" nearly gripped his neck, it would fall apart before his eyes. Decades later as an adult, Baum integrated his tormentor into the novel as the
ScarecrowThe Scarecrow is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum and illustrator William Wallace Denslow. In his first appearance, the Scarecrow reveals that he lacks a brain and desires above all else to have one. In reality, he is only two days old and merely...
. According to his son
HarryHarry Neal Baum is an American author and the third son of L. Frank Baum. His father dedicated his 1902 novel The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus to him....
, the
Tin WoodmanThe Tin Woodman, sometimes referred to as the Tin Man or the Tin Woodsman , is a character in the fictional Land of Oz created by American author L. Frank Baum...
was born from Baum's attraction to window displays. Because he wished to make something captivating for the window displays, he used an eclectic assortment of scraps to craft a striking figure. From a washboiler he made a body, from bolted stovepipes he made arms and legs, and from the bottom of a saucepan he made a face. Baum then placed a funnel hat on the figure, which ultimately became the Tin Woodman.
John D. RockefellerJohn Davison Rockefeller was an American oil industrialist, investor, and philanthropist. He was the founder of the Standard Oil Company, which dominated the oil industry and was the first great U.S. business trust. Rockefeller revolutionized the petroleum industry and defined the structure of...
was the nemesis of Baum's father, an oil baron who declined to purchase
Standard OilStandard Oil was a predominant American integrated oil producing, transporting, refining, and marketing company. Established in 1870 as a corporation in Ohio, it was the largest oil refiner in the world and operated as a major company trust and was one of the world's first and largest multinational...
shares in exchange for selling his own oil refinery. Baum scholar Evan I. Schwartz posited that Rockefeller inspired one of the Wizard of Oz's numerous faces. In one scene in the novel, the Wizard is seen as a "tyrannical, hairless head". When Rockefeller was 54 years old, the medical condition
alopeciaAlopecia means loss of hair from the head or body. Alopecia can mean baldness, a term generally reserved for pattern alopecia or androgenic alopecia. Compulsive pulling of hair can also produce hair loss. Hairstyling routines such as tight ponytails or braids may induce Traction alopecia. Both...
caused him to lose every strand of hair on his head, making people fearful of speaking to him.
In the early 1880s, when Baum's play Matches was being performed, a "flicker from a kerosene lantern sparked the rafters", causing the Baum opera house to be consumed by flames. Scholar Evan I. Schwartz posited that this may have inspired the Scarecrow's severest terror: "There is only one thing in the world I am afraid of. A lighted match."
In 1890, while Baum lived in Aberdeen which was experiencing a drought, he wrote a witty story in his "Our Landlady" column in Aberdeen's The Saturday Pioneer. The story was about a farmer who gave green goggles to his horses, causing them to believe that the wood chips they were eating were pieces of grass. Similarly, the Wizard made the people in the Emerald City wear green goggles so that they would believe their city was built from emeralds. Baum, a former salesman of china, wrote in chapter 20 about china that had sprung to life.
During Baum's short stay in Aberdeen, the dissemination of myths about the plentiful West continued. However, the West, instead of being a wonderland, turned into a wasteland because of a drought and a depression. In 1891, Baum moved his family from South Dakota to Chicago. At that time, Chicago was getting ready for the
World's Columbian ExpositionThe World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
in 1893. Scholar Laura Barrett stated that Chicago was "considerably more akin to Oz than to Kansas". After discovering that the myths about the West's incalculable riches were baseless, Baum created "an extension of the American frontier in Oz". In many respects, Baum's creation is similar to the actual frontier save for the fact that the West was still undeveloped at the time. The
Munchkin The Munchkins are the natives of the fictional Munchkin Country in the Oz books by L. Frank Baum. They first appeared in the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in which they are described as being somewhat short of stature, and wear only blue...
s Dorothy encounters at the beginning of the novel represent farmers, as do the Winkies she later meets.
Baum's wife frequently visited her niece, Dorothy Louise Gage. The infant became gravely sick and died on November 11, 1898, of "congestion of the brain" at exactly five months. When the baby, whom Maud adored as the daughter she never had, died, she was devastated and needed to consume medicine. To assuage her distress, Frank made his protagonist of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz a female named Dorothy. Uncle Henry was modeled after Henry Gage, his wife
MaudMaud Gage Baum was the wife of L. Frank Baum. Her mother was the suffragist Matilda Joslyn Gage. In her early life, she attended a boys' high school and was raised to be headstrong....
's father. Bossed around by his wife
MatildaMatilda Electa Joslyn Gage was a suffragist, a Native American activist, an abolitionist, a freethinker, and a prolific author, who was "born with a hatred of oppression".-Early activities:...
, Henry rarely dissented with her. He flourished in business, though, and his neighbors looked up to him. Likewise, Uncle Henry was a "passive but hard-working man" who "looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke". The witches in the novel were influenced by witch-hunting research gathered by Baum's mother-in-law, Matilda. The stories of barbarous acts against accused witches scared Baum. Two key events in the novel involve wicked witches who both meet their death through metaphorical means.
The Gold Standard representation of the story
Baum did not offer any conclusive proof that he intended his novel to be a political allegory. Historian Ranjit S. Dighe wrote that for sixty years after the book's publication, "virtually nobody" had such an interpretation until
Henry LittlefieldHenry M. Littlefield was an American educator, author and historian most notable for his claim that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was a political satire, founding a long tradition of Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
, a high school teacher. In his 1964
American QuarterlyAmerican Quarterly is an academic journal and the official publication of the American Studies Association. The journal covers topics of both domestic and international concern in the United States and is considered a leading resource in the field of American studies. The current editor-in-chief is...
article, "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism", Littlefield posited that the book contained an allegory of the late 19th-century
bimetallismIn economics, bimetallism is a monetary standard in which the value of the monetary unit is defined as equivalent both to a certain quantity of gold and to a certain quantity of silver; such a system establishes a fixed rate of exchange between the two metals...
debate regarding monetary policy. At the beginning of the novel, Dorothy is swept from her farm to Oz by a cyclone, which was frequently compared to the
Free SilverFree Silver was an important United States political policy issue in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Its advocates were in favor of an inflationary monetary policy using the "free coinage of silver" as opposed to the less inflationary Gold Standard; its supporters were called...
movement in Baum's time. The
Yellow Brick RoadThe road of yellow brick is an element in the novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, with additional such roads appearing in The Marvelous Land of Oz and The Patchwork Girl of Oz...
represents the
gold standardThe gold standard is a monetary system in which the standard economic unit of account is a fixed mass of gold. There are distinct kinds of gold standard...
and the
Silver ShoesThe Silver Shoes are the magical shoes that appear in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as Dorothy Gale's transport home. They were originally owned by the Wicked Witch of the East but passed to Dorothy when her house landed on the Witch...
which enable Dorothy to travel more comfortably symbolizes the
Populist PartyThe People's Party, also known as the "Populists", was a short-lived political party in the United States established in 1891. It was most important in 1892-96, then rapidly faded away...
's desire to construct a bimetallic standard of both gold and silver in place of the gold standard. She learns that to return home, she must reach the
Emerald CityThe Emerald City is the fictional capital city of the Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
, Oz's political center, to speak to the Wizard, representing the President of the United States. While journeying to the Emerald City, she encounters a scarecrow, who represents a farmer; a woodman made of tin, who represents a worker dehumanized by industrialization; and a cowardly lion, who represents
William Jennings BryanWilliam Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
, a prominent leader of the silverite movement. The villains of the story, the Wicked Witch of the West and the Wicked Witch of the East, represent the wealthy railroad and oil barons of the American West and the financial and banking interests of the eastern U.S. respectively. Both these groups opposed Populist efforts to move the U.S. to a bimetallic monetary standard since this would have devalued the dollar and made investments less valuable. Workers and poor farmers supported the move away from the gold standard as this would have lessened their crushing debt burdens. The Populist party sought to build a coalition of southern and midwestern tenant farmers and northern industrial workers. These groups are represented in the book by the Good Witches of the North and South. "Oz" is the abbreviated form of ounce, a standard measure of gold.
Littlefield's thesis achieved some popular interest and elaboration but is not taken seriously by literary historians.
Bradley A. Hansen, a professor of economics at the
University of Mary WashingtonThe University of Mary Washington is a public, coeducational liberal arts college located in the city of Fredericksburg, Virginia, USA. Founded in 1908 by the Commonwealth of Virginia as a normal school, during much of the twentieth century it was part of the University of Virginia, until...
, disagreed that the novel is a monetary allegory. He argued that the numerous intersections between both the individuals and happenings in the novel and those in the
1896 presidential electionThe United States presidential election held on November 3, 1896, saw Republican William McKinley defeat Democrat William Jennings Bryan in a campaign considered by political scientists to be one of the most dramatic and complex in American history....
are the central evidence upon which proponents of the allegory depend. Further stating that research has shown that neither Baum's works nor his life history indicate that he supported Populism, Hansen concluded that "the true lesson of The Wizard of Oz may be that economists have been too willing to accept as a truth an elegant story with little empirical support, much the way the characters in Oz accepted the Wizard's impressive tricks as real magic".
Cultural impact
The Wizard of Oz has been an inspiration for many fantasy novels and films. It has been translated or adapted into well over fifty languages, at times being modified in local variations. For instance, in some abridged Indian editions, the Tin Woodman was replaced with a snake. In Russia, a translation by
Alexander Melentyevich VolkovAlexander Melentyevich Volkov was a Soviet novelist and mathematician.He wrote several historical novels, but is mostly remembered for a series of children's books based on L...
produced five books, the
The Wizard of the Emerald CityThe Wizard of the Emerald City is a 1939 children's novel by Russian writer Alexander Melentyevich Volkov. The book is a loose translation of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz...
series, which became progressively distanced from the Baum version, as Ellie and her dog Totoshka travel throughout the Magic Land.
However, its fame has greatly increased mainly because of the many network telecasts of the 1939 film version of the book.
In 1967,
The SeekersThe Seekers are an Australian folk-influenced pop music group which were originally formed in 1962. They were the first Australian popular music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States...
recorded "
Emerald City"Emerald City" is a song by The Seekers telling of the singer's fictional visit to the Emerald City of L. Frank Baum's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz....
", with lyrics about a visit there, set to the melody of
BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's "
An die Freude"Ode to Joy" is an ode written in 1785 by the German poet, playwright and historian Friedrich Schiller, enthusiastically celebrating the brotherhood and unity of all mankind...
".
In 1995,
Gregory MaguireGregory Maguire is an American writer. He is the author of the novels Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and many other novels for adults and children...
published
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the WestWicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, is a parallel novel published in 1995 written by Gregory Maguire and illustrated by Douglas Smith. It is a revisionist look at the land and characters of Oz from L. Frank Baum's 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, its sequels, and the...
, a revisionist look at the land and characters of Oz. Instead of depicting Dorothy, the novel focuses on
ElphabaElphaba Thropp is a fictional character in Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, as well as in the Broadway and West End adaptations, Wicked. In the original L. Frank Baum book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West is unnamed and little...
, the future Wicked Witch of the West.
The IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
characterized the novel as an "an adult read reflecting on the nature of being an outcast, society's pressures to conform, and the effects of oppression and fascism".
Universal Pictures-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
, which bought the novel's
rightsFilm rights are the rights under copyright law to make a derivative work—in this case, a film—derived from an item of intellectual property. Under U.S...
, initially intended to make it into a film. Composer and lyricist
Stephen SchwartzStephen Lawrence Schwartz is an American musical theatre lyricist and composer. In a career spanning over four decades, Schwartz has written such hit musicals as Godspell , Pippin and Wicked...
convinced the company to make the novel into a musical instead. Schwartz wrote
WickedWicked is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Winnie Holzman. It is based on the Gregory Maguire novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West , a parallel novel of the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and L. Frank Baum's classic story The Wonderful Wizard...
s music and lyrics, and it premiered on
BroadwayBroadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
in October 2003.
Many of these draw more directly on
the 1939 MGM Technicolor film version of the novelThe Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
, a now-classic of popular culture shown annually on American television from 1959 to 1991, and shown several times a year every year beginning in 1999.
Critical response
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz received positive critical reviews upon release. In a September 1900 review,
The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
praised the novel, writing that it would appeal to child readers and to younger children who could not read yet. The review also praised the illustrations for being a pleasant complement to the text.
In the first 50 years after The Wizard of Ozs publication in 1900, it received little critical analysis from scholars of children's literature. According to Ruth Berman of
Science Fiction StudiesScience Fiction Studies is an academic journal founded in 1973 by R.D. Mullen. The journal is published three times per year by DePauw University. As the name implies, the journal publishes articles and book reviews on science fiction, but also occasionally on fantasy and horror when the topic...
, the lists of suggested reading published for juvenile readers never contained Baum's work. The lack of interest stemmed from the scholars' misgivings about fantasy, as well as to their belief that lengthy series had little literary merit.
It has repeatedly come under fire over the years. In 1957, the director of Detroit's libraries banned The Wizard of Oz for having "no value" for children of today, for supporting "negativism", and for bringing children's minds to a "cowardly level". Professor Russel B. Nye of
Michigan State UniversityMichigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
countered that "if the message of the Oz books—love, kindness, and unselfishness make the world a better place—seems of no value today", then maybe the time is ripe for "reassess[ing] a good many other things besides the Detroit library's approved list of children's books".
In 1986, seven Fundamentalist Christians families in Tennessee opposed the novel's inclusion in the public school syllabus and filed a lawsuit.
They based their opposition to the novel on its depicting benevolent witches and promoting the belief that integral human attributes were "individually developed rather than God given". One parent said, "I do not want my children seduced into godless supernaturalism". Other reasons included the novel's teaching that females are equal to males and that animals are personified and can speak. The judge ruled that when the novel was being discussed in class, the parents were allowed to have their children leave the classroom.
On a more secular note, feminist author Margery Hourihan has described the book as a "banal and mechanistic story which is written in flat, impoverished prose" and dismissed the central character from the movie adaptation of the book as "the girl-woman of Hollywood".
Providing a twenty-first century perspective about the novel, Leonard Everett Fisher of The Horn Book Magazine wrote in 2000 that Oz has "a timeless message from a less complex era, and it continues to resonate". The challenge of valuing oneself during impending adversity has not, Fisher noted, lessened during the prior 100 years.
In a 2002 review, Bill Delaney of
Salem PressSalem Press is a publisher of reference works on literature, history and biography, the social sciences, and science. Salem Press publishes comprehensive, multivolume sets under its Salem Press imprint, and smaller, condensed titles under its Magill’s Choice imprint.Products include traditional...
praised Baum for giving children the opportunity to discover magic in the mundane things in their everyday lives. He further commended Baum for teaching "millions of children to love reading during their crucial formative years".
Editions
Baum's novel has been adapted and retold numerous times. In some cases, the adaptations bear only a slight semblance to the original edition. By its centennial, the novel had been translated into 22 languages such as Swahili,
TamilTamil is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly by Tamil people of the Indian subcontinent. It has official status in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and in the Indian union territory of Pondicherry. Tamil is also an official language of Sri Lanka and Singapore...
and
Serbo-CroatianSerbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat, less commonly Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian , is a South Slavic language with multiple standards and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro...
.
To celebrate the centennial of the book's publication, the
University Press of KansasThe University Press of Kansas is a publisher that represents the six state universities in the US state of Kansas — Emporia State University, Fort Hays State University, Kansas State University, Pittsburg State University, the University of Kansas, and Wichita State University...
published a new edition titled The Kansas Centennial Edition. Illustrated by
Michael McCurdyMichael McCurdy is an American illustrator, author, and publisher. He is perhaps best known for his distinctive wood engravings and scratchboard drawings which began appearing in books for adults in 1965. He has provided illustrations and wood engravings for over 200 books for children and...
, the black-and-white pictures spanned 24 full pages. Andrew Karp of
Utopian StudiesUtopian Studies is a peer-reviewed academic journal that publishes articles on utopias and utopianism. The journal is published twice a year by the Penn State University Press on behalf of the Society for Utopian Studies.- External links :**...
critiqued the illustrations as being "stunningly detailed" but "somber, sharp-edged, and stark". Whereas W.W. Denslow's illustrations in the first edition portrayed Dorothy and her friends as exuding warmth, McCurdy's depicted Dorothy as "plain, dumpy, even ugly" and her friends as frightened. Karp concluded that the centennial edition, because it is considerably dismal, more resembles the beginning of the 1939 MGM movie than Baum's first edition.
Robert SabudaRobert James Sabuda is a leading children's pop-up book artist and paper engineer. His recent books, such as those describing the stories of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland, have been well-received and critically acclaimed.-Biography:Sabuda was born in Pinckney, Michigan...
created a
pop-up bookThe term pop-up book is often applied to any three-dimensional or movable book, although properly the umbrella term movable book covers pop-ups, transformations, tunnel books, volvelles, flaps, pull-tabs, pop-outs, pull-downs, and more, each of which performs in a different manner...
to commemorate the book's centennial. Baum scholar
Michael Patrick HearnMichael Patrick Hearn is an American literary scholar and one of America's leading men of letters specializing in children's literature and its illustration. His works include The Annotated Wizard of Oz , The Annotated Christmas Carol , and The Annotated Huckleberry Finn...
called the book a "fond tribute" to W. W. Denslow and an "inventive interpretation" of Baum's novel. Sabuda used Denslow's first edition illustrations as "color linoleum cuts" and improved upon them by portraying the features that Denslow failed to capture.
The 2002
Sterling PublishingSterling Publishing Company, Inc. is a publisher of nonfiction titles, with more than 5,000 books in print. Founded in 1949, it publishes a wide range of nonfiction and illustrated titles in categories which include art, biography/autobiography, body/mind/spirit, crafts, culinary, do-it-yourself,...
edition of the novel was illustrated by
Michael ForemanMichael Foreman is an award-winning British author and illustrator, mainly for children. He lives in London. He is one of the best-known and most prolific writer-illustrators of children's books. He was born and grew up in the seaside village of Pakefield, near Lowestoft, Suffolk, where his mother...
with bright watercolors. Reviewer Heide Piehler of
School Library JournalThe School Library Journal is a monthly magazine with articles and reviews for school librarians, media specialists, and public librarians who work with young people. Articles cover a wide variety of topics, with a focus on technology and multimedia. Reviews are included for preschool to 4th grade,...
applauded Foreman for his "skillful command of color and light to emphasize the story's sense of adventure and enchantment". Piehler also admired the "subtle humorous details", including the
winged monkeysWinged monkeys are characters from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, of enough impact between the books and the 1939 movie to have taken their own place in popular culture, regularly referenced in comedic or ironic situations as a source of evil or fear.-Details:In the original Oz novels, these were...
' adorned with "Red Baron-style googles". In her generally favorable review, she critiqued Foreman's depiction of a normal Dorothy as a "disappointment".
Sequels
Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz without any thought of a sequel. After reading the novel, thousands of children wrote letters to him, requesting that he craft another story about Oz. In 1904, he wrote and published the first sequel,
The Marvelous Land of OzThe Marvelous Land of Oz: Being an Account of the Further Adventures of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, commonly shortened to The Land of Oz, published on July 5, 1904, is the second of L. Frank Baum's books set in the Land of Oz, and the sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This and the next...
, explaining that he grudgingly wrote the sequel to address the popular demand. Baum also wrote sequels in 1907, 1908, and 1909. In his 1911
The Emerald City of OzThe Emerald City of Oz is the sixth of L. Frank Baum's fourteen Land of Oz books. It was also adapted into a Canadian animated film in 1987. Originally published on July 20, 1910, it is the story of Dorothy Gale and her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em coming to live in Oz permanently...
, he wrote that he could not continue writing sequels because Ozland had lost contact with the rest of the world. The children refused to accept this story, so Baum, in 1913 and every year thereafter until his death in May 1919, wrote an Oz book. The
Chicago TribuneThe Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
s Russell MacFall wrote that Baum explained the purpose of his novels in a note he penned to his sister, Mary Louise Brewster, in a copy of
Mother Goose in ProseMother Goose in Prose is a collection of twenty-two children's stories based on Mother Goose nursery rhymes. It was the first children's book written by L. Frank Baum, and the first book illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. It was originally published in 1897 by Way and Williams of Chicago, and...
(1897), his first book. He wrote, "To please a child is a sweet and a lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward."
The exceptional success of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz resulted in the creation of many sequels. Baum wrote thirteen sequels to the novel. After he died in 1919, Baum's publishers delegated the creation of more sequels to
Ruth Plumly ThompsonRuth Plumly Thompson was an American writer of children's stories.-Life and work:An avid reader of Baum's books and a lifelong children's writer, Thompson was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and began her writing career in 1914 when she took a job with the Philadelphia Public Ledger; she wrote...
who wrote 21. An original Oz book was published every Christmas between 1913 and 1942. By 1956, five million copies of the Oz books had been published in the English language, while hundreds of thousands had been published in eight foreign languages.
Adaptations
The Wizard of Oz has been adapted to other media numerous times, most famously in the
MGMMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
's
1939 filmThe Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
starring
Judy GarlandJudy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
. Prior to this version, the book had inspired a number of now-less-well-known stage and screen adaptations, including a profitable Broadway musical and three silent films. The 1939 film was considered innovative because of its songs, special effects, and revolutionary use of the new
TechnicolorTechnicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
.
The story has been translated into other languages (at least once without permission), and adapted into comics several times. Following the lapse of the original copyright, the characters have been adapted and reused in spin-offs, unofficial sequels, and reinterpretations, some of which have been controversial in their treatment of Baum's characters.
See also
- 1900 in literature
The year 1900 in literature involved some significant new books and publications, as well as the deaths of several highly prominent writers, including among them the late Irish poet Oscar Wilde and the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche....
- The Secret of Oz
External links
- "Down the Yellow Brick Road of Overinterpretation," by John J. Miller in the Wall Street Journal
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Audio Book a Librivox project.
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900 illustrated copy), Publisher's green and red illustrated cloth over boards; illustrated endpapers. Plate detached. Public Domain – Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
.
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, full text and audio.
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum, an unabridged dramatic audio performance at Wired for Books
Wired for Books is an online educational project of the WOUB Center for Public Media at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. The website features author interviews, dramatic audio productions of classic literature, readings of poetry, short stories, lectures, essays, and children's literature.Nearly...
.
- The Baum Bugle: A Journal of Oz published by The International Wizard of Oz Club, provides frequent critical and historical information about L. Frank Baum and the Oz Series.
- Online version of the 1900 first edition on the Library of Congress website.