About The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

By L. Frank Baum · first published in 1900 · Fantasy

L. Frank Baum had failed as an actor, a shopkeeper and a newspaper editor before he wrote The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900. He said he wanted to write a fairy tale for modern children, one that kept the wonder of the old stories and left out the nightmares and the moral lessons. It became the best-selling children’s book in America for two years running.

Dorothy is an orphan who lives with her aunt and uncle on a grey, sun-baked farm in Kansas. A cyclone carries her house to the Land of Oz, where it lands on a wicked witch. To get home she must follow a road of yellow brick to the Emerald City and ask the Wizard for help. On the way she is joined by a Scarecrow who wants brains, a Tin Woodman who wants a heart and a Lion who wants courage.

The joke that runs through the book, and that the 1939 film kept, is that each of them already has what they are looking for. Readers who know only the film will find differences: the magic shoes are silver, not ruby, and Oz is a real place rather than a dream. This preview covers the cyclone and Dorothy’s first meeting with the Munchkins.