The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, children’s book written by L. Frank Baum and first published in 1900. A modern fairy tale with a distinctly American setting, a delightfully levelheaded and assertive heroine, and engaging fantasy characters, the story was enormously popular and became a classic of children’s literature. However, by the late 20th century the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz had become more familiar than the book on which it was based.
The story chronicles the adventures of a young farm girl named Dorothy Gale in the magical Land of Oz after she and her pet dog Toto are swept away from their home in Kansas by a cyclone. The book is one of the best-known stories in American literature and has been widely translated. The Library of Congress has declared it “America’s greatest and best-loved homegrown fairytale.” Its groundbreaking success, and that of the Broadway musical adapted from the novel led Baum to write thirteen additional Oz books that serve as official sequels to the first story.
The book was illustrated by Baum’s friend and collaborator W.W. Denslow, who also co-held the copyright. The design was lavish for the time, with illustrations on many pages, backgrounds in different colors, and several color plate illustrations. In September 1900, The Grand Rapids Herald wrote that Denslow’s illustrations are “quite as much of the story as in the writing”. The editorial opined that had it not been for Denslow’s pictures, the readers would be unable to picture precisely the figures of Dorothy, Toto, and the other characters.
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