The Land of Oz Redux

Our thanks to MPL librarian Sally Michalski for today's Birthday Biography!

While most people know the Land of Oz from the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz, there was a time, before radio and television, when the children of the world were caught up in the wonderful Land of Oz in print. Oz was the Harry Potter series of its time.  It was a craze.

Lyman Frank Baum, a man who could not find his place in the real world, loved to tell stories to his children.  Finally, about 1899, he was persuaded to put his stories on paper. He engaged W.W. Denslow as the illustrator of his imaginary Land of Oz that they tried to get published, but no one would take them on. Finally, the Geo. M. Hill Company agreed to publish the book, but Baum and Denslow had to pay for the binding and color illustrations themselves.

The first 1900 edition was a printing of 5,000 books and was quickly sold out.  Two other printings followed, and between April and November of that year, 60,000 copies had been sold.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was such a success that L. Frank Baum, as he preferred to be known, went on to write other children’s books about other children -- but not Dorothy.

He got letters from children begging him to write another story about Dorothy and the Land of Oz, and finally he said that he'd only write another Oz tale when he had received a thousand letters. And he got them.

The second book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, was once again a hit, but Dorothy wasn’t in it. The children clamored for more -- but this time with Dorothy, please.  Ever after, every Oz book Baum wrote had Dorothy taking part.

I read these books as a child who frequented my local library. It was a strong emotional pull that took me directly to the bottom shelf of a stack, kneeling on a corrugated rubber runner hoping against hope that there was yet another Oz book I hadn’t yet read. I loved the characters, and I’m not just talking about the Tin Woodsman and the Cowardly Lion.  I am talking about such high falutin’ characters as H. M. Wogglebug, T. E. (or Highly Magnified Wogglebug, Thoroughly Educated). Another favorite character was the Patchwork Girl, who was the only person of color in Munchkinland.

There were oodles more, each one more interesting than the last. I couldn’t stop reading them.

As a child, I loved the stories as stories themselves.  I grew up to be a collector of Oz books, because I still can’t get them out of my system. As time went on, I began to see the man behind the stories.  Frank Baum kept popping out in his opinions, his politics, and his thoughts about new-fangled inventions.

In Ozma of Oz, published in 1907, a new character is introduced.  Her name is the Princess Langwidere -- whose name is close to languid, which means unwilling to exert oneself.  Baum portrays the Princess Langwidere in this fashion, as she must lean on her maid for support as she travels from one room to the other or from one closet to the next.

Langwidere is a princess of the Kingdom of Ev.  She does not rule, but spends much of the royal treasury. The princess cannot be recognized by her face, because she is very vain and has thirty heads, one for every day of the month.  This princess has a waiting room that is surrounded with mirrors, even on the ceiling, and the floor is silvered so that every object in the room is reflected. A vain and flighty person is the Princess Langwidere.

Baum pokes fun at the suffragettes in The Marvelous Land of Oz, published in 1904.  A girl named General Jinjur raises an army of four hundred pretty girls.  The army is going to attack the Emerald City because “[the City] has been ruled by men for long enough.”

Jinjur’s army is dressed in silk uniforms with green blouses and multicolored skirts. (The skirts have panels of blue, red, yellow, and purple.  Depending on what Oz country the girl is from, she wears the color of that country in front.) Each girl has a pair of knitting needles in her bun that she uses as a weapon. When they arrive at the gates of the Emerald City, the Guardian of the Gate is surprised to be attacked, and says, “Good gracious, what a nonsensical idea! Go home to your mothers, my good girls, and milk the cows and bake the bread.” The army then attacks him with their knitting needles and he runs off in search of help.

Next, Jinjur sits on the throne in the Emerald City and begins eating caramels. The men of Oz are doing housework and minding children, and are worn out from the work.  The Scarecrow, who was the reigning King of Oz, is asked, “Why don’t you send her back to her mother where she belongs?” Another asks, “Why don’t you shut her up in a closet until she behaves herself, and promises to be good?” A third says, “Or give her a good shaking.”

In Ozma of Oz (1907), Jinjur is seen again.  On another trip to the Emerald City, Dorothy and her gang stop to beg some milk from a pretty maid.  Ozma sees that it is Jinjur who explains, “I’ve married a man who owns nine cows, and now I am happy and contented and willing to lead a quiet life and mind my own business.”

In all, L. Frank Baum wrote 14 Oz books and numerous other titles for children.  When he died in 1919, Ruth Plumley Thompson took up the stories with The Royal Book of Oz (a posthumous honor to Baum) and, in total, wrote 19 more books about Oz. John R. Neal, the second illustrator of the original Baum series, wrote four Oz books.  Jack Snow wrote two and Rachel Cosgrove wrote one, as did Eloise Jarvis McGraw and her daughter.  There are other Oz books beyond these, but they are not considered canon.

The land that Frank Baum created is still very much with us today.  Not only is The Wizard of Oz movie with Judy Garland a staple for children, but recently Oz, the Great and Powerful was produced as the latest addition to the story of Oz.  I am happy to report that I think this new movie carried through the personality of the Wizard, although I could have done without the sexy witches.

A first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is very valuable today. There are websites that have first editions of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from $6,000 to $100,000. For myself, I've found that writing a blog plot can be expensive.  In doing this little exercise, I just had to purchase a copy of John R. Neill’s posthumously published book The Runaway in Oz. One can never have too many Oz books.

Happy Birthday, L. Frank Baum -- 157 years old this May 15. You enriched my childhood with imagination and a sense of wonder.

-- Post by Sally Michalski

For more reading:

- Introducing the Girls of Oz
Sally Michalski's website, with more information about the female characters of Baum's Oz books.

- Rare Oz Books 

All about the rare collectibles of Oz.

References: 

- Baum, L. Frank, The Marvelous Land of Oz: A Sequel to the Wizard of Oz, ill. John R. Neill (New York: William Morrow & Co., c1904).

- Baum, L. Frank, Ozma of Oz, ill. John R. Neill  (Chicago: The Reilly & Lee Co., c1907).

- Betty Lee Johnson, “The World of Oz Remains Wonderful To this Day,” Antique Week, 3 February 1992.

- Daniel P. Mannix, “ The Father of the Wizard of Oz,” American Heritage, December. 1964.


(All illustrations by John R. Neill.)