The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz (/ɒz/) is an American children's novel
written by author L. Frank Baum
and illustrated by W. W. Denslow,
originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago on May 17, 1900.[1] It has since seen several reprints, most often under the
title The Wizard of Oz, which is the title of the popular 1902 Broadway musical
adaptation as well as the iconic 1939 live-action film.
The
story chronicles the adventures of a young farm girl named Dorothy in the magical Land
of Oz, after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their Kansas home by a cyclone.[nb
1] The book is one of the best-known
stories in American literature and has been widely translated. The Library of Congress
has declared it "America's greatest and best-loved homegrown
fairytale." Its groundbreaking success and the success of the Broadway
musical adapted from the novel led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz
books that serve as official sequels to
the first story.
In
January 1901, George M. Hill Company completed printing the first edition, a
total of 10,000 copies, which quickly sold out. It sold three million copies by
the time it entered the public
domain in 1956.
Publication
The
book was published by George M. Hill Company. The first edition had a printing of 10,000 copies and was
sold in advance of the publication date of September 1, 1900. On May 17, 1900,
the first copy came off the press; Baum assembled it by hand and presented it
to his sister, Mary Louise Baum Brewster. The public saw it for the first time
at a book fair at the Palmer House
in Chicago, July 5–20. Its copyright was registered on August 1; full
distribution followed in September.[2] By October 1900, it had already sold out and the second
edition of 15,000 copies was nearly depleted.[3]
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 that the book would be phenomenally
successful. He agreed to publish the book only when the manager of the Chicago
Grand Opera House, Fred R. Hamlin, committed to making it into a musical stage
play to publicize the novel. The play The Wizard of Oz debuted on June 16, 1902. It was revised to suit adult
preferences and was crafted as a "musical extravaganza," with the
costumes modeled after Denslow's drawings. Hill's publishing company became
bankrupt in 1901, so Baum and Denslow agreed to have the Indianapolis-based Bobbs-Merrill Company resume publishing the novel.[4]
Baum's
son, Harry Neal,
told the Chicago Tribune in 1944 that Baum 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.[5]
By
1938, more than one million copies of the book had been printed.[6] By 1956, the sales of it had grown to three million copies
in print.
Plot
Dorothy is a young girl who lives with her Aunt
Em, Uncle Henry,
and dog, Toto,
on a farm on the Kansas prairie. One day, she and Toto are caught up in a cyclone that deposits them and the farmhouse into Munchkin
Country in the magical Land
of Oz. The falling house has killed the Wicked Witch of the East, the evil ruler of the Munchkins. The Good Witch of the North arrives with three grateful Munchkins and gives Dorothy the
magical silver shoes
that once belonged to the Wicked Witch. The Good Witch tells Dorothy that the
only way she can return home is to follow the yellow
brick road to the Emerald
City and ask the great and powerful Wizard of Oz to help her. As Dorothy embarks on her journey, the Good
Witch of the North kisses her on the forehead, giving her magical protection
from harm.
On
her way down the yellow brick road, Dorothy attends a banquet held by a
Munchkin named Boq. The next day, she frees a Scarecrow from the pole on which he is hanging, applies oil from a
can to the rusted joints of a Tin
Woodman, and meets a Cowardly
Lion. The Scarecrow wants a brain, the
Tin Woodman wants a heart, and the Cowardly Lion wants courage, so Dorothy
encourages them to journey with her and Toto to the Emerald City to ask for
help from the Wizard. After several adventures, the travelers arrive at the
Emerald City and meet the Guardian of the Gates, who asks them to wear green tinted spectacles to keep
their eyes from being blinded by the city's brilliance. Each one is called to
see the Wizard. He appears to Dorothy as a giant head, to the Scarecrow as a
lovely lady, to the Tin Woodman as a terrible beast, and to the Cowardly Lion
as a ball of fire. He agrees to help them all if they kill the Wicked Witch of the West, who rules over Winkie
Country. The Guardian warns them that no
one has ever managed to defeat the witch.
The
Wicked Witch of the West sees the travelers approaching with her one telescopic
eye. She sends a pack of wolves to tear them to pieces, but the Tin Woodman
kills them with his axe. She sends wild crows to peck their eyes out, but the
Scarecrow kills them by breaking their necks. She summons a swarm of black bees
to sting them, but they are killed while trying to sting the Tin Woodman while
the Scarecrow's straw hides the others. She sends a dozen of her Winkie slaves
to attack them, but the Cowardly Lion stands firm to repel them. Finally, she
uses the power of her Golden Cap to send the Winged
Monkeys to capture Dorothy, Toto, and the
Cowardly Lion, unstuff the Scarecrow, and dent the Tin Woodman. Dorothy is
forced to become the witch's personal slave, while the witch schemes to steal
her silver shoes.
The
witch successfully tricks Dorothy out of one of her silver shoes. Angered, she
throws a bucket of water at the witch and is shocked to see her melt away. The
Winkies rejoice at being freed from her tyranny and help restuff the Scarecrow
and mend the Tin Woodman. They ask the Tin Woodman to become their ruler, which
he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas. Dorothy finds the
witch's Golden Cap and summons the Winged Monkeys to carry her and her friends
back to the Emerald City. The King of the Winged Monkeys tells how he and his
band are bound by an enchantment to the cap by the sorceress Gayelette
from the North, and that Dorothy may use it to summon them two more times.
When
Dorothy and her friends meet the Wizard of Oz again, Toto tips over a screen in
a corner of the throne room that reveals the Wizard. He sadly explains he is a
humbug—an ordinary old man who, by a hot air balloon, came to Oz long ago from Omaha. He provides the Scarecrow with a head full of bran, pins,
and needles ("a lot of bran-new brains"), the Tin Woodman with a silk
heart stuffed with sawdust, and the Cowardly Lion a potion of
"courage". Their faith in his power gives these items a focus for
their desires. He decides to take Dorothy and Toto home and then go back to
Omaha in his balloon. At the send-off, he appoints the Scarecrow to rule in his
stead, which he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas. Toto
chases a kitten in the crowd and Dorothy goes after him, but the ropes holding
the balloon break and the Wizard floats away.
Dorothy
summons the Winged Monkeys and tells them to carry her and Toto home, but they
explain they can't cross the desert surrounding Oz. The Soldier with the
Green Whiskers informs Dorothy that Glinda, the Good Witch of the South may be able to help her return home, so the travelers begin
their journey to see Glinda's castle in Quadling
Country. On the way, the Lion kills a giant
spider who is terrorizing the animals in a forest. They ask him to become their
king, which he agrees to do after helping Dorothy return to Kansas. Dorothy
summons the Winged Monkeys a third time to fly them over a hill to Glinda's
castle. Glinda greets them and reveals that Dorothy's silver shoes can take her
anywhere she wishes to go. She embraces her friends, all of whom will be
returned to their new kingdoms through Glinda's three uses of the Golden Cap:
the Scarecrow to the Emerald City, the Tin Woodman to Winkie Country, and the
Lion to the forest; after which the cap will be given to the King of the Winged
Monkeys, freeing him and his band. Dorothy takes Toto in her arms, knocks her
heels together three times, and wishes to return home. Instantly, she begins
whirling through the air and rolling on the grass of the Kansas prairie, up to
the farmhouse. She runs to Aunt Em, saying "I'm so glad to be home
again!"
Illustration and design
The
book was illustrated by Baum's friend and collaborator W. W. Denslow,
who also co-held the copyright. The design was lavish for the time, with
illustrations on many pages, backgrounds in different colors, and several color
plate illustrations.[7] 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.[8]
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.[9] 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.[10]
A
new edition of the book appeared in 1944, with illustrations by Evelyn
Copelman.[11] 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 version of Baum's book.[12]
Sources of images and ideas
Baum
acknowledged the influence of the Brothers
Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, which he was deliberately revising in his "American
fairy tales" to include the wonder without the horrors.[13]
The Land of Oz and other locations
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,
Michigan, where Baum lived during the
summer. The yellow brick road was derived from a road at that time paved by
yellow bricks, located in Peekskill, New York, where Baum attended the
Peekskill Military Academy. Baum scholars often refer to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (the "White City") as an inspiration for the
Emerald City. Other legends suggest that the inspiration came from the Hotel Del Coronado
near San Diego, California. Baum was a frequent guest at the hotel and had
written several of the Oz books there.[14] In a 1903 interview with Publishers
Weekly,[15]
Baum said that the name "OZ" came from his file cabinet labeled
"O–Z".[16]
Some
critics have suggested that Baum may have been inspired by Australia, a relatively new country at the time of the book's
original publication. Australia is often colloquially spelled or referred to as
"Oz". Furthermore, in Ozma of Oz (1907), Dorothy gets back to
Oz as the result of a storm at sea while she and Uncle Henry are traveling by
ship to Australia. Like Australia, Oz is an island continent somewhere to the
west of California
with inhabited regions bordering on a great desert. One might imagine that Baum
intended Oz to be Australia, or perhaps a magical land in the center of the
great Australian desert.[17]
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Another
influence lay in Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures
in Wonderland. 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 standard of juvenile
literature".[8] Baum found Carroll's plots incoherent, but he identified
the books' source of popularity as Alice herself, a child with whom the child readers could
identify; this influenced his choice of a protagonist.[13] Baum was also influenced by Carroll's belief that
children's books should have many pictures and be pleasurable to read. Carroll
rejected the Victorian-era ideology that children's books should be saturated
with morals, instead believing that children should be allowed to be
children. Building on Carroll's style of numerous images accompanying the text,
Baum combined the conventional features of a fairy
tale (witches and wizards)
with the well-known things in his readers' lives (scarecrows and cornfields).[18]
American fantasy story
The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz is
considered by some to be the first American fairy tale because of its
references to clear American locations such as Kansas and Omaha. Baum agreed
with authors such as Carroll that fantasy literature was important for children,
along with numerous illustrations, but he also wanted to create a story that
had recognizable American elements in it, such as farming and
industrialization.[19] While that sentiment is worthy, it overlooks several
American fairy tales written by Washington
Irving about the Catskills region of New
York State. Stories such as "Rip
Van Winkle", published in 1819, and
"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow", published in 1820, predate the Oz tales by several
decades.
Baum's 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
Scarecrow.[20] According to his son Harry, the Tin Woodman was born from
Baum's attraction to window displays. He wished to make something captivating
for the window displays, so 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.[21] John D. Rockefeller
was the nemesis of Baum's father, an oil baron who declined to purchase Standard
Oil shares in exchange for selling his
own oil refinery. Baum scholar Evan I. Schwartz posited that Rockefeller
inspired one of the Wizard'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 alopecia caused him to lose every strand of hair on his head, making
people fearful of speaking to him.[22]
In
the early 1880s, Baum's play Matches was being performed when a
"flicker from a kerosene lantern sparked the rafters", causing the Baum
opera house to be consumed by flames. Scholar Evan I. Schwartz suggested that
this might have inspired the Scarecrow's severest terror: "There is only
one thing in the world I am afraid of. A lighted match."[23]
In
1890, Baum lived in Aberdeen, Dakota Territory, which was experiencing a drought, and he wrote a witty
story in his "Our Landlady" column in Aberdeen's The Saturday
Pioneer[24] about a farmer who gave green goggles to his horses,
causing them to believe that the wood chips that 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 that their city was built from emeralds.[25]
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 Exposition 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 Munchkins Dorothy encounters at the
beginning of the novel represent farmers, as do the Winkies she later meets.[26]
Baum's
wife frequently visited her niece, Dorothy Louise Gage. The infant became
gravely sick and died on November 11, 1898, from "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.[27] To assuage her distress, Frank made his protagonist of The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz a female named Dorothy.[28] Uncle Henry
was modeled after Henry Gage, his wife Maud's father. Bossed around by his wife Matilda,
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".[29] 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.[30]
Baum
held different jobs, moved a lot, and was exposed to many people, so the
inspiration for the story could have been taken from many different aspects of
his life.[31] In the introduction to the story, Baum writes that "it
aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are
retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out."[32] This is one of the explanations that he gives for the
inspiration for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Baum, a former salesman of
china, wrote in chapter 20 about china that had sprung to life.[25]
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