L. Frank Baum

American author of children's books (1856–1919)

L. Frank Baum

Baum, c. 1911

Baum, c. 1911

Born| Lyman Frank Baum
(1856-05-15)May 15, 1856
Chittenango, New York, U.S.
Died| May 6, 1919(1919-05-06) (aged 62)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place| Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Pen name|

* George Brooks
* Louis F. Baum
* Laura Bancroft
* Suzanne Metcalf
* Capt. Hugh Fitzgerald
* Schuyler Staunton
* Edith Van Dyne
* Floyd Akers
* John Estes Cooke

Occupation| Author
Genre|

* Fantasy
* poetry
* short stories

Spouse|

Maud Gage

(m. 1882)​

Children| 4, including Frank and Harry
Relatives| Matilda Joslyn Gage (mother-in-law)
Roger S. Baum (great-grandson)
Signature
File:L Frank Baum Signature.svg

Lyman Frank Baum (/bɔːm/;[1] May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919) was an American author best known for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels. He wrote 14 novels in the Oz series, plus 41 other novels (not including four lost, unpublished novels), 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema.

Born and raised in upstate New York, Baum moved west after an unsuccessful stint as a theater producer and playwright. He and his wife opened a store in South Dakota and he edited and published a newspaper. They then moved to Chicago, where he worked as a newspaper reporter and published children's literature, coming out with the first Oz book in 1900. While continuing his writing, among his final projects he sought to establish a film studio focused on children's films in Los Angeles, California.

His works anticipated such later commonplaces as television, augmented reality, laptop computers (The Master Key), wireless telephones (Tik-Tok of Oz), women in high-risk and action-heavy occupations (Mary Louise in the Country), and the ubiquity of clothes advertising (Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work). Unusually for the 1900s and 1910s, a number of his works feature characters who are transgender, non-binary, or otherwise genderqueer.

## Contents

* 1 Childhood and early life
* 2 Career
* 2.1 Theater
* 2.2 The South Dakota years
* 2.3 Writing
* 2.3.1 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
* 2.3.2 The Wizard of Oz: Fred R. Hamlin's Musical Extravaganza
* 3 Later life and work
* 4 Death
* 5 Baum's beliefs
* 5.1 Literary
* 5.2 Political
* 5.2.1 Women's suffrage advocate
* 5.2.2 Racial views
* 5.2.3 Political imagery in The Wizard of Oz
* 5.3 Religion
* 6 Bibliography
* 7 Works
* 7.1 Land of Oz works
* 8 Popular culture and legacy
* 9 See also
* 10 Notes
* 11 References
* 12 External links

## Childhood and early life[edit | edit source]

Baum was born in Chittenango, New York, in 1856 into a devout Methodist family. He had German, Scots-Irish, and English ancestry. He was the seventh of nine children of Cynthia Ann (née Stanton) and Benjamin Ward Baum, only five of whom survived into adulthood.[2][3] "Lyman" was the name of his father's brother, but he always disliked it and preferred his middle name "Frank".[4]

File:Cadet L. Frank Baum 1868.jpg

Young Baum in the Peekskill Military Academy

His father succeeded in many businesses, including barrel-making, oil drilling in Pennsylvania, and real estate. Baum grew up on his parents' expansive estate called Rose Lawn, which he fondly recalled as a sort of paradise.[5] Rose Lawn was located in Mattydale, New York.[6] Frank was a sickly, dreamy child, tutored at home with his siblings. From the age of 12, he spent two miserable years at Peekskill Military Academy but, after being severely disciplined for daydreaming, he had a possibly psychogenic heart attack and was allowed to return home.[7]

Baum started writing early in life, possibly prompted by his father buying him a cheap printing press. He had always been close to his younger brother Henry (Harry) Clay Baum, who helped in the production of The Rose Lawn Home Journal. The brothers published several issues of the journal, including advertisements from local businesses, which they gave to family and friends for free.[8] By the age of 17, Baum established a second amateur journal called The Stamp Collector, printed an 11-page pamphlet called Baum's Complete Stamp Dealers' Directory, and started a stamp dealership with friends.[9]

At 20, Baum took on the national craze of breeding fancy poultry. He specialized in raising the Hamburg chicken. In March 1880, he established a monthly trade journal, The Poultry Record, and in 1886, when Baum was 30 years old, his first book was published: The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs.[10]

Baum had a flair for being the spotlight of fun in the household, including during times of financial difficulties. His selling of fireworks made the Fourth of July memorable. His skyrockets, Roman candles, and fireworks filled the sky, while many people around the neighborhood would gather in front of the house to watch the displays. Christmas was even more festive. Baum dressed as Santa Claus for the family. His father would place the Christmas tree behind a curtain in the front parlor so that Baum could talk to everyone while he decorated the tree without people managing to see him. He maintained this tradition all his life.[11]

## Career[edit | edit source]

### Theater[edit | edit source]

Baum embarked on his lifetime infatuation—and wavering financial success—with the theater.[12] A local theatrical company duped him into replenishing their stock of costumes on the promise of leading roles coming his way. Disillusioned, Baum left the theater—temporarily—and went to work as a clerk in his brother-in-law's dry goods company in Syracuse. This experience may have influenced his story "The Suicide of Kiaros", first published in the literary journal The White Elephant. A fellow clerk one day had been found locked in a store room dead, probably from suicide.

Baum could never stay away long from the stage. He performed in plays under the stage names of Louis F. Baum and George Brooks.[13][14] In 1880, his father built him a theater in Richburg, New York, and Baum set about writing plays and gathering a company to act in them. The Maid of Arran proved a modest success, a melodrama with songs based on William Black's novel A Princess of Thule. Baum wrote the play and composed songs for it (making it a prototypical musical, as its songs relate to the narrative), and acted in the leading role. His aunt Katharine Gray played his character's aunt. She was the founder of Syracuse Oratory School, and Baum advertised his services in her catalog to teach theater, including stage business, play writing, directing, translating (French, German, and Italian), revision, and operettas.

On November 9, 1882, Baum married Maud Gage, a daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a famous women's suffrage and feminist activist. While Baum was touring with The Maid of Arran, the theater in Richburg caught fire during a production of Baum's ironically titled parlor drama Matches, destroying the theater as well as the only known copies of many of Baum's scripts, including Matches, as well as costumes.

### The South Dakota years[edit | edit source]

In July 1888, Baum and his wife moved to Aberdeen, Dakota Territory where he opened a store called "Baum's Bazaar". His habit of giving out wares on credit led to the eventual bankrupting of the store,[15] so Baum turned to editing the local newspaper The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer where he wrote the column Our Landlady.[16] Following the death of Sitting Bull at the hands of Indian agency police, Baum recommended the wholesale extermination of all America's native peoples in a column that he wrote on December 20, 1890 (full text below).[17] It is unclear whether Baum meant it as a satire or not, especially since his mother-in-law Matilda Joslyn Gage received an honorary adoption into the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Nation and was a fierce defender of Native American rights,[18] but on January 3, 1891, he returned to the subject in an editorial response to the Wounded Knee Massacre:[19]

> The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extirmination  [sic] of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.[20]

Baum's description of Kansas in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is based on his experiences in drought-ridden South Dakota. During much of this time, Matilda Joslyn Gage was living in the Baum household. While Baum was in South Dakota, he sang in a quartet which included James Kyle, who became one of the first Populist (People's Party) Senators in the U.S.[citation needed]

### Writing[edit | edit source]

File:Baum poster 1b.jpg

Promotional Poster for Baum's "Popular Books For Children", c. 1901

Baum's newspaper failed in 1891, and he, Maud, and their four sons moved to the Humboldt Park section of Chicago, where Baum took a job reporting for the Evening Post. Beginning in 1897, he founded and edited a magazine called The Show Window,[21] later known as the Merchants Record and Show Window, which focused on store window displays, retail strategies and visual merchandising. The major department stores of the time created elaborate Christmas time fantasies, using clockwork mechanisms that made people and animals appear to move. The former Show Window magazine is still currently in operation, now known as VMSD magazine[21] (visual merchandising + store design), based in Cincinnati.[22] In 1900, Baum published a book about window displays in which he stressed the importance of mannequins in drawing customers.[23] He also had to work as a traveling salesman.[24]

File:W. W. Denslow 1900.png

Denslow in 1900

In 1897, he wrote and published Mother Goose in Prose, a collection of Mother Goose rhymes written as prose stories and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. Mother Goose was a moderate success and allowed Baum to quit his sales job (which had had a negative impact on his health). In 1899, Baum partnered with illustrator W. W. Denslow to publish Father Goose, His Book, a collection of nonsense poetry. The book was a success, becoming the best-selling children's book of the year.[25]

File:Ad for Baum-Parrish Mother Goose book.gif

The Baum–Parrish Mother Goose used to promote a breakfast cereal (part 1 of 12 as a free premium)

#### The Wonderful Wizard of Oz[edit | edit source]

Main article: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

In 1900, Baum and Denslow (with whom he shared the copyright) published The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to much critical acclaim and financial success.[26] The book was the best-selling children's book for two years after its initial publication. Baum went on to write thirteen more novels based on the places and people of the Land of Oz.

#### The Wizard of Oz: Fred R. Hamlin's Musical Extravaganza[edit | edit source]

File:Tin-Man-poster-Hamlin.jpeg

1903 poster of Dave Montgomery as the Tin Man in Hamlin's musical stage version.

Two years after Wizard's publication, Baum and Denslow teamed up with composer Paul Tietjens and director Julian Mitchell to produce a musical stage version of the book under Fred R. Hamlin.[27] Baum and Tietjens had worked on a musical of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1901 and based closely upon the book, but it was rejected. This stage version opened in Chicago in 1902 (the first to use the shortened title "The Wizard of Oz"), then ran on Broadway for 293 stage nights from January to October 1903. It returned to Broadway in 1904, where it played from March to May and again from November to December. It successfully toured the United States with much of the same cast, as was done in those days, until 1911, and then became available for amateur use. The stage version starred Anna Laughlin as Dorothy Gale, alongside David C. Montgomery and Fred Stone as the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow respectively, which shot the pair to instant fame.

The stage version differed quite a bit from the book, and was aimed primarily at adults. Toto was replaced with Imogene the Cow, and Tryxie Tryfle (a waitress) and Pastoria (a streetcar operator) were added as fellow cyclone victims. The Wicked Witch of the West was eliminated entirely in the script, and the plot became about how the four friends were allied with the usurping Wizard and were hunted as traitors to Pastoria II, the rightful King of Oz. It is unclear how much control or influence Baum had on the script; it appears that many of the changes were written by Baum against his wishes due to contractual requirements with Hamlin. Jokes in the script, mostly written by Glen MacDonough, called for explicit references to President Theodore Roosevelt, Senator Mark Hanna, Rev. Andrew Danquer, and oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller. Although use of the script was rather free-form, the line about Hanna was ordered dropped as soon as Hamlin got word of his death in 1904.

Beginning with the success of the stage version, most subsequent versions of the story, including newer editions of the novel, have been titled "The Wizard of Oz", rather than using the full, original title. In more recent years, restoring the full title has become increasingly common, particularly to distinguish the novel from the Hollywood film.

Baum wrote a new Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, with a view to making it into a stage production, which was titled The Woggle-Bug, but Montgomery and Stone balked at appearing when the original was still running. The Scarecrow and Tin Woodman were then omitted from this adaptation, which was seen as a self-rip-off by critics and proved to be a major flop before it could reach Broadway. He also worked for years on a musical version of Ozma of Oz, which eventually became The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. This did fairly well in Los Angeles, but not well enough to convince producer Oliver Morosco to mount a production in New York. He also began a stage version of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, but this was ultimately realized as a film.

## Later life and work[edit | edit source]

With the success of Wizard on page and stage, Baum and Denslow hoped for further success and published Dot and Tot of Merryland in 1901.[28] The book was one of Baum's weakest, and its failure further strained his faltering relationship with Denslow. It was their last collaboration. Baum worked primarily with John R. Neill on his fantasy work beginning in 1904, but Baum met Neill few times (all before he moved to California) and often found Neill's art not humorous enough for his liking. He was particularly offended when Neill published The Oz Toy Book: Cut-outs for the Kiddies without authorization.

Baum reportedly designed the chandeliers in the Crown Room of the Hotel del Coronado; however, that attribution has yet to be corroborated.[29] Several times during the development of the Oz series, Baum declared that he had written his last Oz book and devoted himself to other works of fantasy fiction based in other magical lands, including The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus and Queen Zixi of Ix. However, he returned to the series each time, persuaded by popular demand, letters from children, and the failure of his new books. Even so, his other works remained very popular after his death, with The Master Key appearing on St. Nicholas Magazine's survey of readers' favorite books well into the 1920s.

In 1905, Baum declared plans for an Oz amusement park. In an interview, he mentioned buying “Pedloe Island” off the coast of California to turn it into an Oz park. However, there is no evidence that he purchased such an island, and no one has ever been able to find any island whose name even resembles Pedloe in that area.[30][31] Nevertheless, Baum stated to the press that he had discovered a Pedloe Island off the coast of California and that he had purchased it to be "the Marvelous Land of Oz," intending it to be "a fairy paradise for children." Eleven year old Dorothy Talbot of San Francisco was reported to be ascendant to the throne on March 1, 1906, when the Palace of Oz was expected to be completed. Baum planned to live on the island, with administrative duties handled by the princess and her all-child advisers. Plans included statues of the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Jack Pumpkinhead, and H.M. Woggle-Bug, T.E.[32] Baum abandoned his Oz park project after the failure of The Woggle-Bug, which was playing at the Garrick Theatre in 1905.

File:L. Frank Baum and characters in The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays 1908.png

Baum surrounded by the characters in The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays

Because of his lifelong love of theatre, he financed elaborate musicals, often to his financial detriment. One of Baum's worst financial endeavors was his The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays (1908), which combined a slideshow, film, and live actors with a lecture by Baum as if he were giving a travelogue to Oz.[33] However, Baum ran into trouble and could not pay his debts to the company who produced the films. He did not get back to a stable financial situation for several years, after he sold the royalty rights to many of his earlier works, including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This resulted in the M.A. Donahue Company publishing cheap editions of his early works with advertising which purported that Baum's newer output was inferior to the less expensive books that they were releasing. He claimed bankruptcy in August 1911.[34] However, Baum had shrewdly transferred most of his property into Maud's name, except for his clothing, his typewriter, and his library (mostly of children's books, such as the fairy tales of Andrew Lang, whose portrait he kept in his study)—all of which, he successfully argued, were essential to his occupation. Maud handled the finances anyway, and thus Baum lost much less than he could have.

Baum made use of several pseudonyms for some of his other non-Oz books. They include:

* Edith Van Dyne (the Aunt Jane's Nieces series)
* Laura Bancroft (The Twinkle Tales, Policeman Bluejay)
* Floyd Akers (The Boy Fortune Hunters series, continuing the Sam Steele series)
* Suzanne Metcalf (Annabel)
* Schuyler Staunton (The Fate of a Crown, Daughters of Destiny)
* John Estes Cooke (Tamawaca Folks)
* Capt. Hugh Fitzgerald (the Sam Steele series)

Baum also anonymously wrote The Last Egyptian: A Romance of the Nile. He continued theatrical work with Harry Marston Haldeman's men's social group The Uplifters,[35] for which he wrote several plays for various celebrations. He also wrote the group's parodic by-laws. The group also included Will Rogers, but was proud to have had Baum as a member and posthumously revived many of his works despite their ephemeral intent. Many of these play's titles are known, but only The Uplift of Lucifer is known to survive (it was published in a limited edition in the 1960s). Prior to that, his last produced play was The Tik-Tok Man of Oz (based on Ozma of Oz and the basis for Tik-Tok of Oz), a modest success in Hollywood that producer Oliver Morosco decided did not do well enough to take to Broadway. Morosco, incidentally, quickly turned to film production, as did Baum.

In 1914, Baum started his own film production company The Oz Film Manufacturing Company,[36] which came as an outgrowth of the Uplifters. He served as its president and principal producer and screenwriter. The rest of the board consisted of Louis F. Gottschalk, Harry Marston Haldeman, and Clarence R. Rundel. The films were directed by J. Farrell MacDonald, with casts that included Violet MacMillan, Vivian Reed, Mildred Harris, Juanita Hansen, Pierre Couderc, Mai Welles, Louise Emmons, J. Charles Haydon, and early appearances by Harold Lloyd and Hal Roach. Silent film actor Richard Rosson appeared in one of the films (Rosson's younger brother Harold Rosson was the cinematographer on The Wizard of Oz, released in 1939). After little success probing the unrealized children's film market, Baum acknowledged his authorship of The Last Egyptian and made a film of it (portions of which are included in Decasia), but the Oz name had become box office poison for the time being, and even a name change to Dramatic Feature Films and transfer of ownership to Frank Joslyn Baum did not help. Baum invested none of his own money in the venture, unlike The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, but the stress probably took its toll on his health.

## Death[edit | edit source]

File:L. Frank Baum grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California.JPG

Baum's grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, California, in 2011

On May 5, 1919, Baum suffered a stroke, slipped into a coma and died the following day, at the age of 62. His last words were spoken to his wife during a brief period of lucidity: "Now we can cross the Shifting Sands."[37] He was buried in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.[38]

His final Oz book, Glinda of Oz, was published on July 10, 1920, a year after his death. The Oz series was continued long after his death by other authors, notably Ruth Plumly Thompson, who wrote an additional twenty-one Oz books.[39]

## Baum's beliefs[edit | edit source]

### Literary[edit | edit source]

Baum's avowed intentions with the Oz books and his other fairy tales was to retell tales such as those which are found in the works of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, remake them in an American vein, update them, omit stereotypical characters such as dwarfs or genies, and remove the association of violence and moral teachings.[40] His first Oz books contained a fair amount of violence, but the amount of it decreased as the series progressed; in The Emerald City of Oz, Ozma objects to the use of violence, even to the use of violence against the Nomes who threaten Oz with invasion.[41] His introduction is often cited as the beginning of the sanitization of children's stories, although he did not do a great deal more than eliminate harsh moral lessons.

Another traditional element that Baum intentionally omitted was the emphasis on romance. He considered romantic love to be uninteresting to young children, as well as largely incomprehensible. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the only elements of romance lay in the background of the Tin Woodman and his love for Nimmie Amee, which explains his condition but does not affect the tale in any other way, and the background of Gayelette and the enchantment of the Winged monkeys. The only other stories with such elements were The Scarecrow of Oz and Tik-Tok of Oz, both of them were based on dramatizations, which Baum regarded warily until his readers accepted them.[42]

### Political[edit | edit source]

#### Women's suffrage advocate[edit | edit source]

When Baum lived in Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he was secretary of its Equal Suffrage Club, much of the politics in the Republican Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer dealt with trying to convince the populace to vote for women's suffrage.[43] Susan B. Anthony visited Aberdeen and stayed with the Baums. Nancy Tystad Koupal notes an apparent loss of interest in editorializing after Aberdeen failed to pass the bill for women's enfranchisement.

Sally Roesch Wagner of The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation published The Wonderful Mother of Oz, describing how Matilda Gage's feminist politics were sympathetically channeled by Baum into his Oz books. Some of Baum's contacts with suffragists of his day seem to have inspired much of The Marvelous Land of Oz. In this story, General Jinjur leads the girls and women of Oz in a revolt, armed with knitting needles; they succeed and make the men do the household chores. Jinjur proves to be an incompetent ruler, but Princess Ozma, who advocates gender equality, is ultimately placed on the throne. Charlotte Perkins Gilman's 1915 classic of feminist science fiction, Herland, bears strong similarities to The Emerald City of Oz (1910); the link between Baum and Gilman is considered to be Gage.[44] Baum's stories outside of Oz also contain feminist or egalitarian themes. His Edith Van Dyne stories depict girls and young women engaging in traditionally masculine activities, including Aunt Jane's Nieces and The Flying Girl and its sequel. The Bluebird Books feature a girl sleuth.

#### Racial views[edit | edit source]

During the period surrounding the 1890 Ghost Dance movement and Wounded Knee Massacre, Baum wrote two editorials asserting that the safety of white settlers depended on the wholesale genocide of American Indians. These editorials were re-published in 1990 by sociologist Robert Venables of Cornell University, who argues that Baum was not using sarcasm.[45]

The first piece was published on December 20, 1890, five days after the killing of the Lakota Sioux holy man, Sitting Bull.[46][47] The piece opined that with Sitting Bull's death, "the nobility of the Redskin" had been extinguished, and the safety of the frontier would not be established until there was "total annihilation" of the remaining Native Americans, who, he claimed, lived as "miserable wretches." Baum said that their extermination should not be regretted, and their elimination would "do justice to the manly characteristics" of their ancestors.[46]

The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred nine days later; the second editorial was published on January 3, 1891. Baum alleged that General Nelson A. Miles' weak rule of the Native Americans had caused American soldiers to suffer a "terrible loss of blood", in a "battle" which had been a disgrace to the Department of War. He found that the "disaster" could have easily been prevented with proper preparations. Baum reiterated that he believed, due to the history of mistreatment of Native Americans, that the extermination of the "untamed and untamable" tribes was necessary to protect American settlers. Baum ended the editorial with the following anecdote: "An eastern contemporary, with a grain of wisdom in its wit, says that 'when the whites win a fight, it is a victory, and when the Indians win it, it is a massacre.'"[48]

In 2006, two descendants of Baum apologized to the Sioux nation for any hurt that their ancestor had caused.[49]

The short story "The Enchanted Buffalo" claims to be a legend about a tribe of bison, and it states that a key element of it made it into the legends of Native American tribes. Baum mentions his characters' distaste for a Hopi snake dance in Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John, but he also deplores the horrible situation which exists on Indian reservations. Aunt Jane's Nieces on the Ranch features a hard-working Mexican in order to disprove Anglo stereotypes which portray Mexicans as lazy.[citation needed] Baum's mother-in-law and woman's suffrage leader Matilda Joslyn Gage strongly influenced his views. Gage was initiated into the Wolf Clan and admitted into the Iroquois Council of Matrons in recognition of her outspoken respect and sympathy for Native American people.[50]

#### Political imagery in The Wizard of Oz[edit | edit source]

Main article: Political interpretations of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Numerous political references to the "Wizard" appeared early in the 20th century. Henry Littlefield, an upstate New York high school history teacher, wrote a scholarly article in 1964, the first full-fledged interpretation of the novel as an extended metaphor of the politics and characters of the 1890s.[51] He paid special attention to the Populist metaphors and debates over silver and gold.[52] Baum was a Republican and avid supporter of women's suffrage, and it is thought[by whom?] that he did not support the political ideals of either the Populist movement of 1890–1892 or the Bryanite silver crusade of 1896–1900. He published a poem in support of William McKinley.[53]

Since 1964, many scholars, economists, and historians have expanded on Littlefield's interpretation, pointing to multiple similarities between the characters (especially as depicted in Denslow's illustrations) and stock figures from editorial cartoons of the period. Littlefield wrote to The New York Times letters to the editor section spelling out that his theory had no basis in fact, but that his original point was "not to label Baum, or to lessen any of his magic, but rather, as a history teacher at Mount Vernon High School, to invest turn-of-the-century America with the imagery and wonder I have always found in his stories."[54]

Baum's newspaper had addressed politics in the 1890s, and Denslow was an editorial cartoonist as well as an illustrator of children's books. A series of political references is included in the 1902 stage version, such as references to the President, to a powerful senator, and to John D. Rockefeller for providing the oil needed by the Tin Woodman. Scholars have found few political references in Baum's Oz books after 1902. Baum was asked whether his stories had hidden meanings, but he always replied that they were written to "please children".[55]

### Religion[edit | edit source]

Baum was originally a Methodist, but he joined the Episcopal Church in Aberdeen in order to participate in community theatricals. Later, he and his wife were encouraged to become members of the Theosophical Society in 1892 by Matilda Joslyn Gage.[56] Baum's beliefs are frequently reflected in his writings; however, the only mention of a church in his Oz books is the porcelain one which the Cowardly Lion breaks in the Dainty China Country in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Baums sent their older sons to "Ethical Culture Sunday School" in Chicago, which taught morality, not religion.[57][58]

Writers including Evan I. Schwartz[59] among others have suggested that Baum intentionally used allegory and symbolism in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to convey concepts that are central to spiritual teachings such as Theosophy and Buddhism. They postulate that the main characters’ experiences in Oz represent the soul’s journey toward enlightenment. Schwartz specifically states that key plot elements of the book take “the reader on a journey guided by Eastern philosophy” (Schwartz, p. 265). An article in BBC Culture[60] lists several allegorical interpretations of the book including that it may be viewed as a parable of Theosophy. The article cites various symbols and their possible meanings, for example the Yellow Brick Road representing the ‘Golden Path’ in Buddhism, along which the soul travels to a state of spiritual realization.

Baum’s own writing suggests he believed the story may have been divinely inspired: “It was pure inspiration. It came to me right out of the blue. I think that sometimes the Great Author had a message to get across and He was to use the instrument at hand”.[61]

## Bibliography[edit | edit source]

Main article: L. Frank Baum bibliography

## Works[edit | edit source]

* Mother Goose in Prose (1897)
* By the Candelabra's Glare (1898)
* Father Goose: His Book (1899)
* A New Wonderland (1900), revised as The Magical Monarch of Mo (1903)
* The Army Alphabet (1900)
* The Navy Alphabet (1900)
* American Fairy Tales (1901)
* The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902)
* The Enchanted Island of Yew (1903)
* John Dough and the Cherub (1906)
* The Boy Fortune Hunters in Egypt (1908)
* The Boy Fortune Hunters in Panama (1908)
* Fortune Hunters in China
* The Boy Fortune Hunters in the South Seas (1911)
* The Sea Fairies (1911)
* Sky Island (1912)
* Queen Zixi of Ix (1905)
* The Fate of a Crown (1905)
* Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea (1906)
* Daughters of Destiny (novel) (1906)
* The Last Egyptian (1907)

### Land of Oz works[edit | edit source]

Main article: List of Oz books

* The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
* The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904)
* Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz (1905, comic strip depicting 27 stories)
* The Woggle-Bug Book (1905)
* Ozma of Oz (1907)
* Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908)
* The Road to Oz (1909)
* The Emerald City of Oz (1910)
* The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913)
* Little Wizard Stories of Oz (1913, collection of 6 short stories)
* Tik-Tok of Oz (1914)
* The Scarecrow of Oz (1915)
* Rinkitink in Oz (1916)
* The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)
* The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918)
* The Magic of Oz (1919, posthumously published)
* Glinda of Oz (1920, posthumously published)

1921's The Royal Book of Oz was posthumously attributed to Baum but was entirely the work of Ruth Plumly Thompson.

## Popular culture and legacy[edit | edit source]

* A 1970 episode of the long-running American Western anthology series Death Valley Days presents a highly romanticized portrayal of Baum's time in South Dakota.[62] The comedic teleplay, titled "The Wizard of Aberdeen", stars Conlan Carter as Baum and Beverlee McKinsey as Maud.[63] Although the 30-minute presentation touches on Baum's family life and his struggles in Aberdeen as a newspaper editor, it focuses principally on his storytelling to local children about characters in a distant land he initially refers to as "Ooz".[62]
* John Ritter portrayed Baum in the television film The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story (1990).[64]
* Jeffrey Combs portrays a highly fictionalized L. Frank Baum, depicted as a farmer from Kansas in the 1890s, in a flashback subplot in Dorothy and the Witches of Oz (2011).
* Zach Braff plays Frank Baum, part owner of Oscar Diggs' circus in 1905, in Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). While named in tribute to the author, the character is not actually meant to be him.
* The theme park Storybook Land, located in Aberdeen, South Dakota, features the Land of Oz, with characters and attractions from the books.[65]
* In 2013, Baum was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.[66]
* The Woodsman, a 2012 stage play by Edward W. Hardy,[67] tells the backstory of the Tin Man, using puppetry, movement, and music. The play has received multiple Off-Broadway productions, critical praise for Hardy's music, and won a 2016 Obie Award for Ortiz's puppet design.[68][69]
* Rusting Tin Man, a song about how Nick Chopper becomes the Tin Man, is a track from  The Woodsman (Original Off-Broadway Solo Recording) by Edward W. Hardy.[70]

## See also[edit | edit source]

* Ruth Plumly Thompson

## Notes[edit | edit source]

1. ^ "Baum". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d.
2. ^ Rogers, p. 1.
3. ^ Baum, L.F.; Zipes, J.; Denslow, W.W. (1998). The Wonderful World of Oz: The Wizard of Oz, The Emerald City of Oz, Glinda of Oz. Penguin Publishing Group. ISBN 9781440674358. Retrieved May 27, 2015.
4. ^ Hearn, Introduction, The Annotated Wizard of Oz, p. xv n. 3.
5. ^ Rogers, pp. 2–3.
6. ^ "L. Frank Baum Childhood Home - Freethought Trail - New York". freethought-trail.org.
7. ^ Rogers, pp. 3–4.
8. ^ Schwartz, Evan (2009). Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 16\. ISBN 9780547055107.
9. ^ Rogers, pp. 4–5.
10. ^ Baum, L. Frank (Lyman Frank) (June 24, 1886). "The Book of the Hamburgs; a brief treatise upon the mating, rearing and management of the varieties of Hamburgs". Hartford, H. H. Stoddard - via Internet Archive.
11. ^ Rogers, pp. 49.
12. ^ Rogers, pp. 8–9, 16–17 and ff.
13. ^ Rogers, p. 6.
14. ^ Abrams, Dennis (2010). L. Frank Baum. Infobase Publishing. p. 122\. ISBN 978-1-604-13501-5.
15. ^ Rogers, pp. 23–5.
16. ^ Rogers, pp. 25–7 and ff.
17. ^ Sutherland, JJ (October 27, 2010). "L. Frank Baum Advocated Extermination Of Native Americans". NPR. Retrieved May 20, 2017.
18. ^ Foundation, Matilda Joslyn Gage. "The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation". Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation. Retrieved May 31, 2022.
19. ^ Stannard, David E, American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World, Oxford Press, 1992, page 126 ISBN 0-19-508557-4
20. ^ Hastings, A. Waller. "L. Frank Baum's Editorials on the Sioux Nation", Northern State University. (Retrieved Nov 27, 2017)
21. ^ a b "#ThrowbackThursday". Visual Merchandising and Store Design. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
22. ^ "Visual Merchandising and Store Design". Retrieved October 4, 2017.
23. ^ Emily and Per Ola d'Aulaire, "Mannequins: our fantasy figures of high fashion," Smithsonian, Vol. 22, no. 1, April 1991
24. ^ Rogers, pp. 45–59.
25. ^ Rogers, pp. 54–69 and ff.
26. ^ Rogers, pp. 73–94.
27. ^ Rogers, pp. 105–10.
28. ^ Rogers, pp. 95–6.
29. ^ Bell, Diane (September 22, 2014). "Life of 'Oz' creator coming to big screen". San Diego Tribune. Retrieved March 30, 2019.
30. ^ ""Miscellaneous Questions" about L. Frank Baum, see heading "Has there ever been any sort of Wizard of Oz-themed amusement park or tourist attraction?"". webcache.googleusercontent.com. Retrieved May 27, 2015.
31. ^ ""L. Frank Baum's La Jolla, Halfway to Oz" by Bard C. Cosman, in The Journal of San Diego History, Fall 1998, volume 44, Number 4". sandiegohistory.org. Retrieved May 27, 2015.`{{cite web}}`: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
32. ^ "First Princess of Oz and Owner of Island." June 18, 1905, unidentified Chicago newspaper clipping in the L. Frank Baum file at the New York Public Library of the Performing Arts
33. ^ Rogers, pp. 162–3; Hearn, Annotated Wizard, pp. lxvi–lxxi.
34. ^ ""Wizard of Oz" Bankrupt". The Los Angeles Times. August 15, 1911. p. 22. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
35. ^ Rogers, pp. 182–3.
36. ^ Rogers, pp. 110, 177, 181, 202–5 and ff.
37. ^ Abrams p.99
38. ^ Rogers, p. 239.
39. ^ "Ruth Plumly Thompson". psu.edu. Archived from the original on May 1, 2013.
40. ^ Sale, p. 223.
41. ^ Riley, p. 164.
42. ^ Hearn, pp. 138–9.
43. ^ Torrey, Edwin (November 14, 1918). "Six Suffrage Campaigns In South Dakota". The Saturday News. Watertown, South Dakota. The United Press. p. 6. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
44. ^ Massachi, Dina Schiff (2018). "Connecting Baum and Gilman: Matilda Gage and Her Influence on Oz and Herland". The Journal of American Culture. 41 (2): 203–214. doi:10.1111/jacc.12872. S2CID 149563492.
45. ^ Venables, Robert. "Twisted Footnote to Wounded Knee". Northeast Indian Quarterly.
46. ^ a b "L. Frank Baum's Editorials on the Sioux Nation". Archived from the original on December 9, 2007. Retrieved December 9, 2007. Full text of both, with commentary by professor A. Waller Hastings
47. ^ Rogers, p. 259.
48. ^ Professor Robert Venables, Senior Lecturer Rural Sociology Department, Cornell University, "Looking Back at Wounded Knee 1890", Northeast Indian Quarterly, Spring 1990
49. ^ Ray, Charles (August 17, 2006). "'Oz' Family Apologizes for Racist Editorials". Morning Edition. National Public Radio. Retrieved September 4, 2007.
50. ^ Reneau, Reneau H. "A Newer Testament: Misanthropology Unleashed," donlazaro translations, 2008, pp. 129-147
51. ^ LittlefieldHenry. "The Wizard of Oz: Parable on Populism.first=Henry". American Quarterly. v. 16, 3, Spring 1964, 47–58. Archived from the original on August 19, 2010.
52. ^ Attebery, pp. 86–7.
53. ^ Oz Populism Theory at www.halcyon.com
54. ^ "'Oz' Author Kept Intentions to Himself". The New York Times Company. February 7, 1992. Retrieved December 20, 2008.
55. ^ Tuerk, Richard (March 26, 2015). Oz in Perspective: Magic and Myth in the L. Frank Baum Books. McFarland. p. 6\. ISBN 978-0-786-48291-7.
56. ^ Algeo, pp. 270–3; Rogers, pp. 50–1 and ff.
57. ^ F. J. Baum, To Please a Child, p. 84
58. ^ Michael Patrick Hearn. The Annotated Wizard of Oz. 2nd Edition. 2000. pp. 7, 271, 328.
59. ^ Schwartz, Evan I., 2009, Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story, Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
60. ^ "The Wizard of Oz: Five alternative readings". BBC. Retrieved October 18, 2021.
61. ^ Morena, Ph.D., G.D., 2014, The Wisdom of Oz: Reflections of a Jungian Sandplay Therapist, Cardiff, CA: Waterside Productions, Incorporated
62. ^ a b "Death Valley Days S18E14 The Wizard of Aberdeen”, originally uploaded by “This is Invader" February 20, 2017, to YouTube, a subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc., Mountain View, California. Retrieved December 13, 2018.
63. ^ Sherman, Fraser A. (2005). The Wizard of Oz Catalog: L. Frank Baum's Novel, Its Sequels And Their Adaptations for Stage, Television, Movies, Radio, Music Videos, Comic Books, Commercials And More. McFarland & Company Incorporated Pub. p. 198\. ISBN 0-786-41792-7.
64. ^ McCarty, Michael (2004). More Giants of the Genre. Wildside Press LLC. p. 191\. ISBN 0-809-54477-6.
65. ^ McMacken, Robin (2008). The Dakots. Globe Pequot. p. 5\. ISBN 978-0-762-74772-6.
66. ^ "L. Frank Baum". Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. 2013. Retrieved October 8, 2017.
67. ^ "Digital Theatre+ Partners with BroadwayHD to be Their Exclusive Education Partner". Broadway World. Retrieved August 5, 2020.
68. ^ Stories, Local (March 25, 2021). "Meet Edward W. Hardy - Voyage LA Magazine | LA City Guide". voyagela.com.
69. ^ "The Woodsman Play Official Website". The Woodsman Play. Retrieved April 1, 2022.
70. ^ Hardy, Edward W. (2021). "The Woodsman". U.S. ISMN Public Archive. Edward W. Hard.

## References[edit | edit source]

* Algeo, John. "A Notable Theosophist: L. Frank Baum." American Theosophist, Vol. 74 (August–September 1986), pp. 270–3.
* Attebery, Brian. The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature. Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press, 1980.
* Baum, Frank Joslyn, and Russell P. Macfall. To Please a Child. Chicago, Reilly & Lee, 1961.
* Baum, L. Frank. The Annotated Wizard of Oz. Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Michael Patrick Hearn. New York, Clarkson N. Potter, 1973. Revised 2000. New York, W.W. Norton, 2000.
* Ford, Alla T. The High-Jinks of L. Frank Baum. Hong Kong, Ford Press, 1969.
* Ford, Alla T. The Musical Fantasies of L. Frank Baum. Lake Worth, FL, Ford Press, 1969.
* Gardner, Martin, and Russel B. Nye. The Wizard of Oz and Who He Was. East Lansing, MI, Michigan State University Press, 1957. Revised 1994.
* Hearn, Michael Patrick. The Critical Heritage Edition of the Wizard of Oz. New York, Schocken, 1986.
* Koupal, Nancy Tystad. Baum's Road to Oz: The Dakota Years. Pierre, SD, South Dakota State Historical Society, 2000.
* Koupal, Nancy Tystad. Our Landlady. Lawrence, KS, University of Nebraska Press, 1986.
* Parker, David B. The Rise and Fall of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a "Parable on Populism" Journal of the Georgia Association of Historians, vol. 15 (1994), pp. 49–63.
* Reneau, Reneau H. "Misanthropology: A Florilegium of Bahumbuggery" Inglewood, CA, donlazaro translations, 2004, pp. 155–164
* Reneau, Reneau H. "A Newer Testament: Misanthropology Unleashed" Inglewood, CA, donlazaro translations, 2008, pp. 129–147
* Riley, Michael O. Oz and Beyond: The Fantasy World of L. Frank Baum. Lawrence, KS, University of Kansas Press, 1997. ISBN 0-7006-0832-X
* Rogers, Katharine M. L. Frank Baum, Creator of Oz: A Biography. New York, St. Martin's Press, 2002. ISBN 0-312-30174-X
* Sale, Roger. Fairy Tales and After: From Snow White to E. B. White. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University press, 1978. ISBN 0-674-29157-3
* Schwartz, Evan I. Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story. New York, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009 ISBN 0-547-05510-2
* Wagner, Sally Roesch. The Wonderful Mother of Oz. Fayetteville, NY: The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation, 2003.
* Wilgus, Neal. "Classic American Fairy Tales: The Fantasies of L. Frank Baum" in Darrell Schweitzer (ed) Discovering Classic Fantasy Fiction, Gillette NJ: Wildside Press, 1996, pp. 113–121.
* "17 Lost Manuscripts: L. Frank Baum, Ernest Hemingway, John Milton, and More".

## External links[edit | edit source]

Justapedia supports:

* File:Commons-logo.svgMedia from Commons
* File:Wikiquote-logo.svgQuotations from Wikiquote
* File:Wikidata-logo.svgData from Wikidata

* Works by L. Frank Baum in eBook form at Standard Ebooks
* Works by L. Frank Baum at Project Gutenberg
* Works by or about L. Frank Baum at Internet Archive
* The Complete Oz Works
* Works by L. Frank Baum at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) File:Speaker Icon.svg
* L. Frank Baum Papers at Syracuse University
* Bibliography (Baum and Oz)
* The International Wizard of Oz Club, Inc.
* L. Frank Baum Works Archive at archive.today (archived December 5, 2006)
* Wonderful Wizard of Oz Website
* Free scores by L. Frank Baum at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
* Copyright Registration Application from Claimant L. Frank Baum for The wonderful Wizard of Oz From the Collections at the Library of Congress
* Finding aid to Roland Orvil Baughman collection about L. Frank Baum at Columbia University, Rare Book & Manuscript Library

* v
* t
* e

L. Frank Baum

Bibliography

Novels|

* The Magical Monarch of Mo
* The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
* Dot and Tot of Merryland
* The Master Key
* The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
* The Enchanted Island of Yew
* The Marvelous Land of Oz
* Queen Zixi of Ix
* The Fate of a Crown
* The Woggle-Bug Book
* Annabel
* Aunt Jane's Nieces
* Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad
* Daughters of Destiny
* Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea
* The Twinkle Tales
* John Dough and the Cherub
* Ozma of Oz
* Policeman Bluejay
* The Last Egyptian
* Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
* Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville
* Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work
* The Road to Oz
* Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society
* The Emerald City of Oz
* Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John
* The Daring Twins
* The Flying Girl
* The Sea Fairies
* Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation
* Phoebe Daring
* Sky Island
* Aunt Jane's Nieces on the Ranch
* The Patchwork Girl of Oz
* Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West
* Tik-Tok of Oz
* Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross
* The Scarecrow of Oz
* Mary Louise
* Rinkitink in Oz
* The Lost Princess of Oz
* The Tin Woodman of Oz
* The Magic of Oz
* Glinda of Oz

Short story
collections|

* Mother Goose in Prose
* American Fairy Tales
* Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz
* Animal Fairy Tales
* L. Frank Baum's Juvenile Speaker
* Little Wizard Stories of Oz
* The Runaway Shadows

Poetry
collections|

* By the Candelabra's Glare
* Father Goose: His Book

Plays|

* The Maid of Arran
* The Wizard of Oz (1902)
* Prince Silverwings
* The Woggle-Bug
* The Tik-Tok Man of Oz

Films|

* The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays
* The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914)
* The Magic Cloak of Oz
* His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz
* Violet's Dreams
* The Gray Nun of Belgium

Related people
and collaborators|

* Maud Gage Baum (wife)
* Matilda Joslyn Gage (mother-in-law)
* Frank Joslyn Baum (son)
* Harry Neal Baum (son)
* Roger S. Baum (great-grandson)
* Jocelyn Burdick (niece)
* Paul Tietjens
* Edith Ogden Harrison
* Isidore Witmark
* Louis F. Gottschalk
* Nathaniel D. Mann
* Frederic Chapin
* Manuel Klein
* Arthur Pryor
* Byron Gay
* Emerson Hough
* William Wallace Denslow
* John R. Neill

Related|

* The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story (1990 film)

* v
* t
* e

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Canonical
books|

| L. Frank
Baum|

* The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
* The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904)
* Ozma of Oz (1907)
* Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908)
* The Road to Oz (1909)
* The Emerald City of Oz (1910)
* The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913)
* Tik-Tok of Oz (1914)
* The Scarecrow of Oz (1915)
* Rinkitink in Oz (1916)
* The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)
* The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918)
* The Magic of Oz (1919)
* Glinda of Oz (1920)

|

Ruth Plumly
Thompson|

* The Royal Book of Oz (1921)
* Kabumpo in Oz (1922)
* The Cowardly Lion of Oz (1923)
* Grampa in Oz (1924)
* The Lost King of Oz (1925)
* The Hungry Tiger of Oz (1926)
* The Gnome King of Oz (1927)
* The Giant Horse of Oz (1928)
* Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz (1929)
* The Yellow Knight of Oz (1930)
* Pirates in Oz (1931)
* The Purple Prince of Oz (1932)
* Ojo in Oz (1933)
* Speedy in Oz (1934)
* The Wishing Horse of Oz (1935)
* Captain Salt in Oz (1936)
* Handy Mandy in Oz (1937)
* The Silver Princess in Oz (1938)
* Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz (1939)

Others|

* The Wonder City of Oz (1940)
* The Scalawagons of Oz (1941)
* Lucky Bucky in Oz (1942)
* The Magical Mimics in Oz (1946)
* The Shaggy Man of Oz (1949)
* The Hidden Valley of Oz (1951)
* Merry Go Round in Oz (1963)
* Yankee in Oz (1972)
* The Enchanted Island of Oz (1976)
* The Forbidden Fountain of Oz (1980)
* The Ozmapolitan of Oz (1986)
* The Wicked Witch of Oz (1993)
* The Giant Garden of Oz (1993)
* The Runaway in Oz (1995)
* The Rundelstone of Oz (2000)
* The Emerald Wand of Oz (2005)
* Trouble Under Oz (2006)

Alternate|

* Dorothy of Oz (1989)
* Lion of Oz and the Badge of Courage (1995)

Locations
and elements|

* Land of Oz
* Emerald City
* Munchkin Country
* Gillikin Country
* Winkie Country
* Quadling Country
* Yellow brick road
* Deadly Desert
* Land of Ev
* Merryland
* Nome Kingdom
* Noland
* Ruby slippers
* Silver shoes
* The Oz Film Manufacturing Company

Characters|

| Created by
L. Frank Baum|

* Dorothy Gale
* Toto
* Aunt Em
* Uncle Henry
* Princess Ozma
* The Wizard of Oz
* Scarecrow
* Tin Woodman
* Cowardly Lion
* Glinda, the Good Witch of the South
* Good Witch of the North
* Wicked Witch of the East
* Wicked Witch of the West
* Billina
* Glass Cat
* Jack Pumpkinhead
* Jellia Jamb
* Jinjur
* John Dough
* Mombi
* Munchkins
* Boq
* Ojo the Lucky
* Nine Tiny Piglets
* Nome King
* Pastoria
* Patchwork Girl
* Polychrome
* Queen Lurline
* Shaggy Man
* Soldier with the Green Whiskers
* Tik-Tok
* Trot
* Winged monkeys
* Woggle-Bug

|

Created by
other writers|

* Jinnicky the Red Jinn
* Kabumpo
* Peter Brown
* Pigasus

Other writers|

| Authors|

* John R. Neill
* Jack Snow
* Rachel Cosgrove Payes
* Eloise Jarvis McGraw
* Dick Martin
* Alexander Volkov
* Gregory Maguire
* Sherwood Smith
* Roger S. Baum

|

Illustrators|

* William Wallace Denslow
* Frank Kramer
* Dirk Gringhuis
* Dick Martin
* Eric Shanower
* William Stout

Related|

* Political interpretations
* Copyright status

Adaptations and other derivative works

Stage|

* The Wizard of Oz (1902)
* The Woggle-Bug (1905)
* The Tik-Tok Man of Oz (1913)
* The Wizard of Oz (1942)
* The Wiz (1974)
* The Marvelous Land of Oz (1981)
* The Wizard of Oz (1987)
* The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (2000)
* The Wizard of Oz (2011)
* The Woodsman (2012)

American films|

* The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays (1908)
* The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1910)
* Dorothy and the Scarecrow in Oz (1910)
* The Land of Oz (1910)
* John Dough and the Cherub (1910)
* The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914)
* The Magic Cloak of Oz (1914)
* His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (1914)
* The Wizard of Oz (1925)
* The Wizard of Oz (1933)
* The Wizard of Oz (1939)
* Rainbow Road to Oz (1954, unproduced)
* The Wonderful Land of Oz (1969)
* Journey Back to Oz (1972)
* The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1975) (educational)
* The Wiz (1978)
* Return to Oz (1985)
* Dorothy Meets Ozma of Oz (1987)
* Lion of Oz (2000)
* After the Wizard (2011)
* Tom and Jerry and the Wizard of Oz (2011)
* Dorothy and the Witches of Oz (2012)
* Oz the Great and Powerful (2013)
* Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return (2014)
* OzLand (2014)
* Tom and Jerry: Back to Oz (2016)

Foreign language films|

* Ayşecik ve Sihirli Cüceler Rüyalar Ülkesinde (1971)
* The Wizard of Oz (1982)
* Os Trapalhões e o Mágico de Oróz (1984)
* Guardians of Oz (2015)
* Rainbow (2022)

Other films|

* The Wizard of Mars (1965)
* Hunter (1973)
* Zardoz (1974)
* Oz (1976)
* The Steam Engines of Oz (2018)

Television|

* The Wizard of Oz (1950)
* Tales of the Wizard of Oz (1961)
* Return to Oz (1964)
* Off to See the Wizard (1967)
* The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1986)
* The Dreamer of Oz: The L. Frank Baum Story (1990)
* The Wizard of Oz (1990)
* The Wonderful Galaxy of Oz (1992)
* The Wizard of Oz in Concert: Dreams Come True (1995)
* The Oz Kids (1996)
* Lost in Oz (2002)
* The Muppets' Wizard of Oz (2005)
* The Wonderful Wizard of Ha's
* Tin Man (2007)
* Wizard of Odd (2010)
* Once Upon a Time (2011)
* The Wiz Live! (2015)
* Lost In Oz (2015)
* Emerald City (2017)
* Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz (2017)

Comics|

* Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz (1904–05)
* Adventures in Oz (1986–1992)
* The Enchanted Apples of Oz (1986)
* Oz Squad (1991)
* Lost Girls (1991–92)
* Oz (1994)
* MÄR
* Dorothy of Oz (2006)
* The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (2009)

Video
games|

* The Wizard of Oz (arcade game)
* The Wizard of Oz (pinball)
* The Wizard of Oz (1993)
* The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road (2008)
* Emerald City Confidential (2009)

Reimagining|

* The Wizard of the Emerald City (1939)
* The Number of the Beast (1980)
* A Barnstormer in Oz (1982)
* The Wizard of A.I.D.S. (1987)
* Sir Harold and the Gnome King (1991)
* The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass (1997)
* Visitors from Oz (1998)
* Dorothy Must Die (2014)
* The Wicked Will Rise (2015)

The Wicked
Years|

* Wicked
* Son of a Witch
* A Lion Among Men
* Out of Oz
* Wicked (musical)
* Characters

Others|

* The Wozard of Iz
* Edward W. Hardy's The Woodsman (Original Off-Broadway Solo Recording)
* Land of Oz (theme park)
* Ozma (album)

Related|

* The International Wizard of Oz Club
* The Baum Bugle
* Twister (1994)
* Oz Park

* Category

*[c.]: circa
*[m.]: married
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