Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The The. L. Frank Baum
THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ
By
L. FRANK BAUM
This edition published by Dreamscape Media LLC, 2018
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About L. Frank Baum:
Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 – May 6, 1919), better known as L. Frank Baum, was an American author chiefly famous for his children's books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and its sequels. He wrote a total of 14 novels in the Oz series, plus 41 other novels, 83 short stories, more than 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and the nascent medium of film; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book would become a landmark of twentieth-century cinema. His works anticipated many technological advances that would become commonplace a century later: television, augmented reality, laptop computers (The Master Key), wireless telephones (Tik-Tok of Oz), and cultural trends such as women in high-risk and action-heavy occupations (Mary Louise in the Country), police corruption and false evidence (Phoebe Daring), and the ubiquity of advertising on clothing (Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work).
Source: Wikipedia
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2. The Council with the Munchkins
3. How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow
4. The Road Through the Forest
5. The Rescue of the Tin Woodman
7. The Journey to the Great Oz
9. The Queen of the Field Mice
12. The Search for the Wicked Witch
15. The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible
16. The Magic Art of the Great Humbug
17. How the Balloon Was Launched
19. Attacked by the Fighting Trees
21. The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts
22. The Country of the Quadlings
23. Glinda The Good Witch Grants Dorothy's Wish
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.
1. 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.