The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Baum L. Frank

Description

Often referred to as America’s first fairy tale, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is one of the most well-known children’s stories of all time.

L. Frank Baum’s children’s fantasy novel will whisk you away to an extraordinary land of Munchkins, Winged Monkeys, and magical shoes. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was originally published in 1900 and has been adapted countless times for the stage and screen. Join Dorothy, the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion as they embark on their adventure down the yellow brick road.

Read & Co. Children’s is proudly republishing this classic novel now in a new edition complete with a specially-commissioned biography of the author.

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 06 novembre 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528791755
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ
By
L. FRANK BAUM

First published in 1900



Copyright © 2020 Read & Co. Children's
This edition is published by Read & Co. Children's, an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd. For more information visit www.readandcobooks.co.uk
Cover illustration by Laura Trinder www.lauratrinder.co.uk


Contents
L . Frank Baum
INTRODUCTION
I THE CYCLONE
II THE COUNCIL WITH T HE MUNCHKINS
III HOW DOROTHY SAVED T HE SCARECROW
IV THE ROAD THROUG H THE FOREST
V THE RESCUE OF THE TIN WOODMAN
VI THE C OWARDLY LION
VII THE JOURNEY TO THE GREAT OZ
VIII THE DEADLY POPPY FIELD
IX THE QUEEN OF TH E FIELD MICE
X THE GUARDIAN OF THE GATE
XI THE WONDERFU L CITY OF OZ
XII THE SEARCH FOR THE WICKED WITCH
XII I THE RESCUE
XIV THE WI NGED MONKEYS
XV THE DISCOVERY OF OZ, THE TERRIBLE
XVI THE MAGIC ART OF THE GREAT HUMBUG
XVII HOW THE BALLOON WAS LAUNCHED
XVIII AWAY TO THE SOUTH
XIX ATTACKED BY THE FI GHTING TREES
XX THE DAINTY C HINA COUNTRY
XXI THE LION BECOMES THE KI NG OF BEASTS
XXII THE COUNTRY OF T HE QUADLINGS
XXIII GLINDA THE GOOD WITCH GRANTS DO ROTHY'S WISH
XXI V HOME AGAIN



L. Frank Baum
Lyman Frank Baum was born on 15th May 1856 in Chittenango, New York, Un ited States.
He came from a wealthy family, his father, Benjamin Baum, having made a fortune in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. To begin with, Baum was tutored at home with his siblings, but at the age of 12 he was sent to Peskskill Military School to be toughened up. He spent two years there and hated it it so much that his parents let him return home.
Baum started writing at an early age and was lucky enough to have been bought a cheap printing press by his father. He and his brother used this to produce The Rose Lawn Home Journal, of which they published several issues. By the time he was 17, Baum established a second amateur journal, The Stamp Collector , printed an 11-page pamphlet called Baum's Complete Stamp Dealers' Directory , and started a stamp dealership with friends. As a young man, Baum also took a keen interest in breeding fancy poultry, establishing the trade journal The Poultry Record in 1880, and later writing his first book on the subject The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs .
Baum loved the theatre and wanted to both write and star in stage productions. His father built a theatre for him in Richburg, New York, and Baum set about writing plays and gathering a company to act in them. He wrote and starred in a musical melodrama, titled The Maid of Arran, which included songs based on William Black's novel A Princess of Thule. This was a modest success and the show went on tour. However, while on the road with the play, the theatre in Richburg caught fire during a production of Baum's ironically-titled parlor drama, Matches , destroying not only the theatre, but the only known copies of many of Baum's scripts, including Matches , as well as costumes.
In 1882, Baum married Maud Gage, the daughter of the famous women's suffrage and feminist activist, Matilda Joslyn Gage. The couple moved to Aberdeen, Dakota Territory, in 1888, and he opened a store there called “Baum's Bazaar.” This eventually went bankrupt and Baum turned to editing a local newspaper, The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer , where he wrote a column, O ur Landlady.
Baum's first literary success was Mother Goose in Prose (1897), a collection of Mother Goose rhymes written as prose stories and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. His follow up to this, in partnership with illustrator W. W. Denslow, was a collection of nonsense poetry called Father Goose, His Book. This became the best-selling children's book of the year. However, it was in 1900 that he and Denslow teamed up to create his best known work The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This received critical acclaim and gave Baum financial success, being the best-selling children's book for two years after its publication. Baum continued to write tales of the Land of Oz throughout his career, producing thirteen more novels set in the magical land, including The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904), Ozma of Oz (1907), The Road to Oz (1909), and Tik-Tok o f Oz (1914).
In 1902, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was adapted to the stage under the shortened title “The Wizard of Oz”, opening in Chicago and then playing on Broadway. It was a huge success and was eventually adapted to the silver screen in 1939. Baum tried to take other tales from the Oz series to the stage, but none were as well received as the original. His love of the theatre caused him severe financial difficulties in later life and he ended up having to sell many of the royalty rights to his earlier works, including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, to pa y his debts.
Baum died, following a stroke, on 6th May 1919 and is buried in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Pa rk Cemetery.



INTRODUCTION
Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other huma n creations.
Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations, may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeab le incident.
Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares a re left out.
L . Frank Baum Chicago, April , 1900.


THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ
I
THE CYCLONE
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife. Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no cellar—except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into the small , dark hole.
When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away, and now the house was as dull and gray as ever ything else.
When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to her, Aunt Em had been so startled by the child's laughter that she would scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy's merry voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder that she could find anything to laugh at.
Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and r arely spoke.
It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as gray as her other surroundings. Toto was not gray; he was a little black dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly.
Today, however, they were not playing. Uncle Henry sat upon the doorstep and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than usual. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at the sky too. Aunt Em was washing the dishes.
From the far north they heard a low wail of the wind, and Uncle Henry and Dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the coming storm. There now came a sharp whistli