The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

By L. Frank Baum

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" by L. Frank Baum is a timeless classic that whisks readers away on an extraordinary adventure over the rainbow. This enchanting tale begins with young Dorothy Gale, swept away from her gray Kansas prairie home by a cyclone, landing in the vibra

• Language: English
• Publisher: Left of Brain Books
• Release date: Dec 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781396323898

L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum (1856 - 1919) was an American author, actor, and independent filmmaker best known as the creator, along with illustrator W. W. Denslow, of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, one of the most popular books in American children's literature. He wrote thirteen Oz sequels, nine other fantasy novels, and scores of other works; 55 novels, 82 short stories, over 200 poems, an unknown number of scripts, as well as many miscellaneous writings.

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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

by

L. Frank Baum

First published in 1900

Image 1

Published by Left of Brain Books

Copyright © 2023 Left of Brain Books

ISBN 978-1-396-32389-8

eBook Edition

Al rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations permitted by copyright law. Left of Brain Books is a division of Left Of Brain Onboarding Pty Ltd.

PUBLISHER’S PREFACE

About the Book

"The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a children's novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W.W. Denslow. It was originally published by the George M. Hill Company in Chicago in 1900, and has since been reprinted countless times, sometimes under the name The Wizard of Oz. The story chronicles the adventures of a girl named Dorothy in the Land of Oz. It is one of the best-known stories in American popular culture and has been widely translated. Its initial success, and the success of the popular 1903 Broad-way musical Baum adapted from his story, led to Baum's writing and having published thirteen more Oz books.

Baum dedicated the book to my good friend & comrade, My Wife, Maud Gage Baum. In January 1901 the publisher, the George M. Hill Company, completed printing the first edition, which probably totaled around 35,000

copies. Records indicate that 21,000 copies were sold through 1900.

The original book has been in public domain in the United States since 1956. Baum's thirteen sequels entered public domain in the United States from 1960 through 1986. The rights to these books were held by the Walt Disney Company, and their impending expiration was a prime motivator for the production of the 1985 film Return to Oz, based on Baum's second and third Oz books."

(Quote from wikipedia.org)

About the Author

Lyman Frank Baum (1856 - 1919)

"Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 - May 6, 1919) was an American author, actor, and independent filmmaker best known as the creator, along with illustrator W. W. Denslow, of one of the most popular books in American children's literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, better known today as simply The Wizard of Oz. He wrote thirteen sequels, nine other fantasy

novels, and a plethora of other works (55 novels in total, 82 short stories, over 200 poems, an unknown number of scripts, and many miscellaneous writings), and made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen.

Baum was born in Chittenango, New York, into a devout Methodist family of German (father's side) and Scots-Irish (mother's side) origin, the fifth of six children born to Cynthia Stanton and Benjamin Ward Baum, only three of whom survived into adulthood. He was named Lyman after his father's brother, but always disliked this name, and preferred to go by his middle name, Frank. His mother, Cynthia Stanton, was a direct descendant of Thomas Stanton, one of the four Founders of what is now Stonington, Connecticut."

(Quote from wikipedia.org)

CONTENTS

PUBLISHER’S PREFACE

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................... 1

THE CYCLONE ................................................................................................... 2

THE COUNCIL WITH THE MUNCHKINS ............................................................. 5

HOW DOROTHY SAVED THE SCARECROW ..................................................... 11

THE ROAD THROUGH THE FOREST ................................................................ 17

THE RESCUE OF THE TIN WOODMAN ............................................................ 22

THE COWARDLY LION .................................................................................... 28

THE JOURNEY TO THE GREAT OZ ................................................................... 33

THE DEADLY POPPY FIELD .............................................................................. 38

THE QUEEN OF THE FIELD MICE ..................................................................... 44

THE GUARDIAN OF THE GATE ........................................................................ 48

THE WONDERFUL CITY OF OZ ........................................................................ 54

THE SEARCH FOR THE WICKED WITCH .......................................................... 64

THE RESCUE ................................................................................................... 74

THE WINGED MONKEYS ................................................................................. 78

THE DISCOVERY OF OZ, THE TERRIBLE ........................................................... 84

THE MAGIC ART OF THE GREAT HUMBUG .................................................... 93

HOW THE BALLOON WAS LAUNCHED ........................................................... 97

AWAY TO THE SOUTH .................................................................................. 101

ATTACKED BY THE FIGHTING TREES............................................................. 105

THE DAINTY CHINA COUNTRY ...................................................................... 108

THE LION BECOMES THE KING OF BEASTS ................................................... 113

THE COUNTRY OF THE QUADLINGS ............................................................. 116

GLINDA THE GOOD WITCH GRANTS DOROTHY'S WISH ............................... 119

HOME AGAIN ............................................................................................... 123

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 human 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 disagreeable 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 are left out.

L. Frank Baum

Chicago, April, 1900.

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ

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 everything 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 rarely 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 whistling in the air from the south, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the grass coming from that direction also.

Suddenly Uncle Henry stood up.

There's a cyclone coming, Em, he called to his wife. I'll go look after the stock. Then he ran toward the sheds where the cows and horses were kept.

Aunt Em dropped her work and came to the door. One glance told her of the danger close at hand.

Quick, Dorothy! she screamed. Run for the cellar!

Toto jumped out of Dorothy's arms and hid under the bed, and the girl started to get him. Aunt Em, badly frightened, threw open the trap door in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the small, dark hole. Dorothy caught Toto at last and started to follow her aunt. When she was halfway across the room there came a great shriek from the wind, and the house shook so hard that she lost her footing and sat down suddenly upon the floor.

Then a strange thing happened.

The house whirled around two or three times and rose slowly through the air. Dorothy felt as if she were going up in a balloon.

The north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the exact center of the cyclone. In the middle of a cyclone the air is generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every side of the house raised it up higher and higher, until it was at the very top of the cyclone; and there it remained and was carried miles and miles away as easily as you could carry a feather.

It was very dark, and the wind howled horribly around her, but Dorothy found she was riding quite easily. After the first few whirls around, and one other time when the house tipped badly, she felt as if she were being rocked gently, like a baby in a cradle.

Toto did not like it. He ran about the room, now here, now there, barking loudly; but Dorothy sat quite still on the floor and waited to see what would happen.

Once Toto got too near the open trap door, and fell in; and at first the little girl thought she had lost him. But soon she saw one of his ears sticking up through the hole, for the strong pressure of the air was keeping him up so that he could not fall. She crept to the hole, caught Toto by the ear, and dragged him into the room again, afterward closing the trap door so that no more accidents could happen.

Hour after hour passed away, and slowly Dorothy got over her fright; but she felt quite lonely, and the wind shrieked so loudly all about her that she nearly became deaf. At first she had wondered if she would be dashed to pieces when the house fell again; but as the hours passed and nothing terrible happened, she stopped worrying and resolved to wait calmly and see what the future would bring. At last she crawled over the swaying