Little Wizard Stories of Oz

L. Frank Baum

Jul 2013 · Courier Corporation

About this ebook

After concluding the fourteenth volume of his popular series, L. Frank Baum returned to the land of Oz in 1914 with six short stories featuring Dorothy, Toto, and other beloved characters. Written for slightly younger readers, these hard-to-find tales offer a fine introduction to Baum's enchanted world.
Featured stories include "The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger," "Little Dorothy and Toto," "Tiktok and the Nome King," "Ozma and the Little Wizard," "Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse," and "The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman." This facsimile edition re-creates the charm of the original, including its distinctive blue type and more than 40 full-color illustrations.

About the author

Best known as the author of the Wizard of Oz series, Lyman Frank Baum was born on May 15, 1856, in New York. When Baum was a young man, his father, who had made a fortune in oil, gave him several theaters in New York and Pennsylvania to manage. Eventually, Baum had his first taste of success as a writer when he staged The Maid of Arran, a melodrama he had written and scored. Married in 1882 to Maud Gage, whose mother was an influential suffragette, the two had four sons. Baum often entertained his children with nursery rhymes and in 1897 published a compilation titled Mother Goose in Prose, which was illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. The project was followed by three other picture books of rhymes, illustrated by William Wallace Denslow. The success of the nursery rhymes persuaded Baum to craft a novel out of one of the stories, which he titled The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Some critics have suggested that Baum modeled the character of the Wizard on himself. Other books for children followed the original Oz book, and Baum continued to produce the popular Oz books until his death in 1919. The series was so popular that after Baum's death and by special arrangement, Oz books continued to be written for the series by other authors. Glinda of Oz, the last Oz book that Baum wrote, was published in 1920. John Rea Neill was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 12, 1877. He was a magazine and children's book illustrator. His illustrations were published numerous magazines including Collier's, Vanity Fair, The Saturday Evening Post, and The Ladies Home Journal. He was best known for illustrating more than 40 stories set in the Land of Oz. He died on September 13, 1943.