The Oz books
2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Novels
The Oz books form a book series that begins with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and that relates the "history" of the Land of Oz. Oz was originally created by author L. Frank Baum, who went on to write fourteen Oz books. Although most of the Oz books are strictly adventures, Baum—as well as many later Oz authors—styled themselves as "Royal Historians" of Oz. Later authors wrote 26 other "official" books after Baum's death. Many other authors have put their own twists on Oz, notably Gregory Maguire's revisionist Wicked.
Background
The first fourteen books by the original author, L. Frank Baum, another nineteen by Ruth Plumly Thompson, and another seven books by various other authors comprise the "Famous Forty", which is considered the classic original series (though many inconsistencies make it difficult to call it canonical). Most of the books in the "Famous Forty" were published by Reilly and Britton (later Reilly and Lee).
Other books were printed later, by different publishing houses. As the earlier works have fallen out of copyright into the public domain (including all of L. Frank Baum's titles), numerous other books have been written in the series by many authors and publishers, some of whom continue to publish new works today.
In fact, so many additional Oz books have been written, that merely attempting to document all such books is a weighty endeavor in and of itself (see: External links). Some small publishers have even specialised in publishing Oz pastiches, of which the most commercial are probably Books of Wonder, Hungry Tiger Press, and The International Wizard of Oz Club—and perhaps the graphic novels of Eric Shanower. There are also alternative series of Oz books, such as the sequels written in Russian by Alexander M. Volkov, or the books of Frank Baum's great-grandson, Roger S. Baum. Then there are the "revisionist" books of Gregory Maguire. The following list therefore contains Oz books written by the authors of the first "Famous Forty" (including those published in later years). Others, including Volkov and Maguire's are listed below.
List of "canonical" Oz books ("The Famous Forty")
By L. Frank Baum
The original books by L. Frank Baum | |||||
Cover | Order | Title | Illustrator | Year | Publisher |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz | W. W. Denslow | 1900 | George M. Hill | |
Dorothy gets swept into the Land of Oz by a cyclone. She meets a living Scarecrow, a man made entirely of tin, and a Cowardly Lion while trying to get to the Emerald City to see the great Wizard. Also reprinted by various publishers under the names The New Wizard of Oz and The Wizard of Oz with occasional minor changes in the text. | |||||
2 | The Marvelous Land of Oz | John R. Neill | 1904 | Reilly & Britton | |
A little boy, Tip, escapes from his evil guardian, the witch Mombi, with the help of a walking wooden figure with a jack-o'-lantern head named Jack Pumpkinhead (brought to life with the magic Powder of Life Tip stole from Mombi), as well as a living Sawhorse (created from the same powder.) Tip ends up on an adventure with the Scarecrow and Tin Woodsman. Also reprinted as The Land of Oz. | |||||
3 | Ozma of Oz | John R. Neill | 1907 | Reilly & Britton | |
While traveling to Australia with her Uncle Henry, little Dorothy is swept overboard with a hen named Billina. They land in Ev, a country across the desert from Oz, and, together with new-found mechanical friend, Tik-Tok, they must save Ev's royal family from the evil Nome King. With Princess Ozma's help, they finally return to Oz. | |||||
4 | Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz | John R. Neill | 1908 | Reilly & Britton | |
On her way back from Australia, Dorothy visits her cousin, Zeb, in California. They are soon swallowed up by an earthquake, along with Zeb's horse Jim and Dorothy's cat Eureka. The group soon meets up with the Wizard and all travel underground back to Oz. | |||||
5 | The Road to Oz | John R. Neill | 1909 | Reilly & Britton | |
Dorothy meets the Shaggy Man, and while trying to find the road to Butterfield, they get lost on an enchanted road. As they travel they meet the rainbow's daughter, Polychrome, and a little boy, Button Bright. They have all sorts of strange adventures on the way to Oz. | |||||
6 | The Emerald City of Oz | John R. Neill | 1910 | Reilly & Britton | |
Dorothy Gale and her Uncle Henry and Aunt Em come to live in Oz permanently. While they tour through the Quadling Country, the Nome King is tunneling beneath the desert to invade Oz. | |||||
7 | The Patchwork Girl of Oz | John R. Neill | 1913 | Reilly & Britton | |
A Munchkin boy named Ojo must find a cure to free his Unc Nunkie from a magical spell that has turned him into a statue. With the help of Scraps, a living Patchwork Girl, Ojo journeys through Oz in order to save his uncle. | |||||
8 | Tik-Tok of Oz | John R. Neill | 1914 | Reilly & Britton | |
Betsy Bobbin, a girl from Oklahoma is shipwrecked with her mule, Hank, in the Rose Kingdom. She meets the Shaggy Man there and the two try to rescue the Shaggy Man's brother from the Nome King. This book is partly based upon Baum's stage musical, The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, which was in turn based on Ozma of Oz. | |||||
9 | The Scarecrow of Oz | John R. Neill | 1915 | Reilly & Britton | |
Cap'n Bill and Trot journey to Oz and, with the help of the Scarecrow, overthrow the cruel King Krewl of Jinxland. Cap'n Bill and Trot had previously appeared in two other novels by Baum, The Sea Fairies and Sky Island. Based in part upon the 1914 silent film, His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz. | |||||
10 | Rinkitink in Oz | John R. Neill | 1916 | Reilly & Britton | |
Prince Inga of Pingaree and King Rinkitink and their companions have adventures that lead to the land of the Nomes and, eventually, Oz. This book only ends up in Oz at the end, because Baum originally wrote it as a non-Oz book, entitled King Rinkitink, and only rewrote it later. | |||||
11 | The Lost Princess of Oz | John R. Neill | 1917 | Reilly & Britton | |
Concerning the disappearance of Princess Ozma, the ruler of Oz. When she is discovered missing, four search parties are sent out, one for each of Oz's four countries. Most of the book covers Dorothy and the Wizard's efforts to find her. Meanwhile, Cayke the Cookie Cook discovers that her magic dishpan (on which she bakes her famous cookies) has been stolen. Along with the Frogman, they leave their mountain in the Winkie Country to find the pan. | |||||
12 | The Tin Woodman of Oz | John R. Neill | 1918 | Reilly & Britton | |
The Tin Woodman, Nick Chopper, is unexpectedly reunited with his Munchkin sweetheart Nimmie Amee from the days when he was flesh and blood. Along the way, Nick discovers a fellow tin man, Captain Fyter, as well as a Frankenstein-like creature made from their combined parts. | |||||
13 | The Magic of Oz | John R. Neill | 1919 | Reilly & Lee | |
Ruggedo, former Nome King, tries to conquer Oz again with the help of a Munchkin boy, Kiki Aru. In the meanwhile, it is also Ozma's birthday, and all of Oz's citizens are searching for the most unique present for the little princess. This was the last Oz book published while Baum was alive. | |||||
14 | Glinda of Oz | John R. Neill | 1920 | Reilly & Lee | |
Dorothy, Ozma and Glinda try to stop a war in the Gillikin Country. This was Baum's last Oz book, and was published posthumously. Most critics agree this is Baum's darkest Oz book, most likely due to his failing health. |
By Ruth Plumly Thompson
Thompson's style was markedly different from Baum's. Her tales harkened back to more traditional fairytales. She often included a small kingdom, a prince or princess who saves his or her kingdom and regains the throne or saves Oz from invasion. Thompson even respelled Baum's respelling " Nome" as the more traditional " Gnome". All in all Thompson wrote 19 Oz books, five more than Baum.
By other writers
When Thompson retired in 1939 longtime Oz illustrator John R. Neill took over the series and wrote three more of the "Famous Forty". Neill's vision of Oz is more manic than Thompson or Baum's. Houses often get up and do battle, and everything can be alive. His entries take Oz's colour scheme (blue for Munchkin Country, red for Quadling Country, etc.) to an extreme, extending it to sky and skin colors.
Jack Snow was a Baum scholar, and even offered to take over the series at age twelve when Baum died. Snow's books lack any characters created by Thompson or Neill, although he did create his own.
By John R. Neill | |||||
Cover | Order | Title | Illustrator | Year | Publisher |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
34 | The Wonder City of Oz | John R. Neill | 1940 | Reilly & Lee | |
Jenny Jump captures a leprechaun and forces him to make her into a fairy, but he only does half the job before escaping. Jenny then jumps to Oz using her half-fairy gifts. She soon sets up a fashionable Style Shop with a magic turnstyle which will give anyone high style and challenges Ozma to an ozlection to become ruler of the Land of Oz. | |||||
35 | The Scalawagons of Oz | John R. Neill | 1941 | Reilly & Lee | |
The Wizard creates Scalawagons, intelligent cars that can also fly. He makes Tik-Tok superintendent of the Scalawagons Factory, but the mechanical man runs down. Bell Snickle, a mysterious creature, takes advantage of Tik-Tok's condition by filling the scalawagons with "flabber-gas" and the Wizard nearly loses his scalawagons. | |||||
36 | Lucky Bucky in Oz | John R. Neill | 1942 | Reilly & Lee | |
Bucky is aboard a tugboat in New York Harbour when the boiler blows up. He is soon blown into the Nonestic Ocean where he meets Davy Jones, a wooden whale. The pair take an undersea route to the Emerald City, and have many adventures along the way. | |||||
By Jack Snow | |||||
37 | The Magical Mimics in Oz | Frank Kramer | 1946 | Reilly & Lee | |
Ozma and Glinda go to meet with the Fairy Queen Lurline in the Forest of Burzee and leaves Dorothy in charge of Oz. During Ozma's absence, the evil Mimics escape their imprisonment on Mount Illuso and use their magic to take the form of others and attempt to conquer Oz. | |||||
38 | The Shaggy Man of Oz | Frank Kramer | 1949 | Reilly & Lee | |
It is discovered that the love magnet, which was owned by the Shaggy Man (from The Road to Oz) has broken, and only its creator, the evil Conjo can fix it. Meanwhile, Twink and Tom are pulled through their television to the Isle of Conjo in the Nonestic Ocean along with the wooden clown Twiffle. Soon the Shaggy Man arrives and saves them from Conjo. | |||||
By Rachel Cosgrove | |||||
39 | The Hidden Valley of Oz | Dirk Gringhuis | 1951 | Reilly & Lee | |
Jam, a boy from Ohio builds a kite and attaches it to a crate and sets off to Oz with his two guinea pigs, Pinny and Gig, and a lab rat named Percy. Once in Oz, Jam realizes his pets can talk. He lands in the Hidden Valley, and becomes a prisoner, but they escape and set out on adventures with the Tin Woodman. | |||||
By Eloise Jarvis McGraw and Lauren Lynn McGraw | |||||
40 | Merry-Go-Round in Oz | Dick Martin | 1963 | Reilly & Lee | |
Robin Brown from the USA rides a magic merry-go-round horse to Oz. Upon landing, Robin must help find the missing magic rings of Halidom. |
Non-canonical Oz works by "Royal Historians"
Each of the "Royal Historians" wrote Oz-related works not generally considered canonical. Some are short stories, some are reference works, still others are novels written sometimes years after the authors' main body of Oz books.
Other Oz works by "Royal Historians" | |||||
Cover | Title | Writer | Illustrator | Year | Publisher |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz | L. Frank Baum | Walt McDougal | 1904–1905 | -- | |
Newspaper comic/column chronicling the misadventures of the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Woggle-Bug, Jack Pumpkinhead, the Sawhorse, and the Gump in the United States. Originally used to promote The Marvelous Land of Oz. Often republished in book form as Visitors from Oz, The Visitors from Oz, or The Third Book of Oz. The edition by Hungry Tiger Press also includes "The Woggle-Bug Book" (see below) and is illustrated by Eric Shanower. Complete series can be read here. | |||||
The Woggle-Bug Book | L. Frank Baum | Ike Morgan | 1905 | Reilly & Britton | |
Further adventures of the Wogglebug in the USA after he gets separated from the others. The text is included in "The Visitors from Oz" from Hungry Tiger Press. The book can be read here. | |||||
Little Wizard Stories of Oz | L. Frank Baum | John R. Neill | 1913 | Reilly & Britton | |
Six short stories about the Oz characters, originally written to help re-launch the Oz series in 1913. Full text can be found here. | |||||
Yankee in Oz | Ruth Plumly Thompson | Dick Martin | 1972 | International Wizard of Oz Club | |
Tompy, a drummer boy from the United States and Yankee, an Air Force dog meet the Red Jinn of Ev and together defeat an evil giant who is threatening both America and Oz. | |||||
The Enchanted Island of Oz | Ruth Plumly Thompson | Dick Martin | 1976 | International Wizard of Oz Club | |
David Perry and his talking camel Humpty Bumpty find themselves on Kapurta, an island stranded in the sky. David must supply the magic to move the island and visit the Emerald City in time for the Cowardly Lion's birthday party. | |||||
The Runaway in Oz | John R. Neill | Eric Shanower | 1995 | Books of Wonder | |
Written in 1943, to be the 37th Oz book, Neill died before he could illustrate the book, so publisher Reilly & Lee decided not to publish it due to shortages during World War II. The manuscript stayed with Neill's family until it was finally published in 1995. Eric Shanower edited it and provided illustrations. | |||||
Who's Who in Oz | Jack Snow | Various | 1954 | Reilly & Lee | |
Definitive guide to the Oz characters. | |||||
The Forbidden Fountain of Oz | By Eloise Jarvis McGraw and Lauren McGraw Wagner | Dick Martin | 1980 | International Wizard of Oz Club | |
Ozma takes a sip from the Forbidden Fountain and forgets who she is and disappears. | |||||
The Rundelstone of Oz | Eloise Jarvis McGraw | Eric Shanower | 2001 | Hungry Tiger Press | |
Pocotristi Sostenuto, a living puppet, must find the magical Rundelstone so he can rescue his fellow puppets from the evil Slyddwynn, the Whitherd of Whitheraway Castle. | |||||
The Wicked Witch of Oz | Rachel Cosgrove | Eric Shanower | 1993 | International Wizard of Oz Club | |
Singra, the Wicked Witch of the South awakens after a 100-year nap and decides to make up for all the wickedness she missed out on. Dorothy and friends must try and stop her before she destroys the Emerald City. |
Baum also wrote Oz-related stage plays: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1901) with music by Paul Tietjens and Nathaniel D. Mann, The Wizard of Oz (1902) (music by Tietjens et al; with jokes by Glen MacDonough), The Woggle-Bug (1905) with music by Frederick Chapin, The Rainbow's Daughter, or The Magnet of Love (February 1909) with music by Manuel Klein, revised in April 1909 as Ozma of Oz, and ultimately produced, with music by Louis F. Gottschalk as The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. Also in 1909, he wrote a play called The Girl from Oz. The manuscript is held in the archives at Syracuse University, but apparently its relation to Oz is little more than nominal (it is also known as The Girl from Tomorrow and was later adapted for radio by Frank Joslyn Baum, as is also the case with the short story, "The Littlest Giant", a rather brutal tale designated in two lines to be in the Gillikin country of Oz. With Gottschalk writing the music, he wrote an unproduced stage version of The Patchwork Girl of Oz in November 1913, that was developed into the film scenario.
Alternate Oz
Below are some books which deal with alternate views of Oz, and are usually considered apocryphal. Because there are literally hundreds of unofficial Oz books, the following is a list of those that are best-known, or most independently or commercially successful.
Alternate Oz | |||||
Title | Writer | Year | Notes | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
A Barnstormer in Oz | Philip José Farmer | 1982 | |||
Was | Geoff Ryman | 1992 | |||
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West | Gregory Maguire | 1995 | published by ReganBooks/HarperCollins | ||
Son of a Witch | Gregory Maguire | 2005 | published by ReganBooks | ||
The Wizard of the Emerald City | Alexander Volkov | 1939, 1959 | Volkov's original translation (with some alterations) of The Wizard of Oz. | ||
Urfin Djus and His Wooden Soldiers | Alexander Volkov | 1963 | The first of Volkov's "sequels". | ||
Seven Kings of the Underground | Alexander Volkov | 1969 | |||
The Yellow Fog | Alexander Volkov | 1972 | |||
The Fire God of the Marrones | Alexander Volkov | 1988 | |||
The Secret of the Forgotten Castle | Alexander Volkov | 1989 | |||
Paradox in Oz | Edward Einhorn (illustrated by Eric Shanower) | 2000 | published by Hungry Tiger Press | ||
The Living House of Oz | Edward Einhorn (illustrated by Eric Shanower) | 2005 | published by Hungry Tiger Press | ||
The Number of the Beast | Robert A. Heinlein | 1980 | |||
Wizard and Glass | Stephen King | 1997 | The characters visit an unpopulated version of Emerald City, looking the same as it does in the 1939 film. The man sitting on the Wizard's throne turns out to be Marten Broadcloak, an alter-ego of one of the Dark Tower Series' main villains. | ||
Return to Oz | Joan D. Vinge | 1985 | The book version of the movie Return to Oz (1985), which is based on the second and third books, The Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz. |