L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) was an American writer, the creator of the Land of Oz. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and its thirteen sequels made him one of the most popular children's authors in the United States.
Works
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Many trades
Lyman Frank Baum was born on 15 May 1856 in Chittenango, New York, the son of a prosperous barrel-maker who made money in oil. A delicate child, he was educated mostly at home and loved fairy tales and printing his own little newspapers.
He tried many careers: breeding fancy chickens, acting and writing plays, selling his family's axle grease, running a general store and a newspaper in Aberdeen, South Dakota, then working as a reporter and travelling salesman in Chicago.
The Wizard
In 1897 he published Mother Goose in Prose, illustrated by Maxfield Parrish, and then Father Goose, His Book, a best-seller. With the illustrator W. W. Denslow he produced The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, published in Chicago in 1900.
The story of Dorothy, carried by a cyclone from Kansas to Oz with the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, was a huge success. A musical adaptation opened in 1902 and ran on Broadway for years.
The Royal Historian of Oz
Baum tried to move on to other stories, but his young readers wrote thousands of letters asking for more Oz. He wrote thirteen sequels, from The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904) to Glinda of Oz (1920), calling himself 'Royal Historian of Oz'.
He moved to Hollywood in 1910, to a house he called Ozcot, founded a short-lived film company and died there on 6 May 1919. The 1939 film with Judy Garland made his story known around the world.
Anecdotes
A name from a filing cabinet
According to a story Baum told, he found the name Oz while looking at a filing cabinet whose drawers were labelled A–N and O–Z. Whether it is true or not, it became part of the legend of the book.
Silver shoes
In the book Dorothy's magic shoes are silver. They became ruby slippers in the 1939 film, partly to show off the new Technicolor process.
Frequently asked questions
How many Oz books did Baum write?
Fourteen: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and thirteen sequels. Other authors continued the series after his death.
Who illustrated The Wonderful Wizard of Oz?
W. W. Denslow, whose colour pictures were an important part of the book's success.
Where did Baum live at the end of his life?
In Hollywood, California, in a house called Ozcot, from 1910 until his death in 1919.