A whiz of a wiz, he was: Reporter who wrote the great American fairytale
Over the decades, millions of children have followed Dorothy down the yellow brick road.
ButitwasonMay17, 1900, that the story of The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz rushed off the printing press for the first time, marking the beginning of the novel’s enduring legacy.
Author L Frank Baum, who had previously worked as a newspaper reporter, editor and travelling salesman, was present to witness the event and even bundled up pages from the first print run to create a special manuscript for his sister, Mary Louise.
The note he wrote on the inside page read: “This ‘dummy’ was made from sheets I gathered from the press as fast as printed and bound up by hand. It is really the very first book ever made of this story.”
It may have been the first but it certainly wasn’t to be the last – the initial run of 10,000 copies sold out within two weeks, 80,000 more were purchased within the first six months, and the tale remained a bestseller for the next two years.
By the time the copyright ceased in 1956, bringing the story into the public domain, three million copies had been sold worldwide.
Reminiscing about the writing process, Baum remarked that the name for his eponymous wizard came to his mind almost entirely by chance. As he told Publishers Weekly magazine in 1903: “I have a little cabinet letter file on my desk in front of me.
“I was thinking and wondering about a title for my story, and I had settled on ‘wizard’ as part of it. My gaze was caught by the gilt letters on the three drawers of the cabinet. The first was A-G, the next drawer was labelled H-N, and on the last were the letters O-Z. And Oz it at once became.”
Illustrated by WW Denslow, the story of Dorothy’s adventure – alongside the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion, who helped her navigate Munchkinland and the Emerald City – was just the first of Baum’s visits to the Land of Oz, as the author went on to write 14 full-length Oz books. The series revisited Dorothy and other characters, including Glinda the Good Witch, but it was Baum’s original narrative that would later inspire one of cinema’s most popular musicals.
Released in 1939, almost 40 years after the novel, and starring child actress Judy
Garland, The Wizard Of Oz was, described as “a mixture of childish fantasy and adult satire and humour of a kind that never seems to grow old” by Variety journalist and critic John C Flinn Sr, and was nominated for six Academy Awards.
However, one of the most iconic aspects of the film, interestingly, didn’t feature in Baum’s original work.
In the novel, Dorothy’s slippers are described as “silver shoes with pointed toes”, but it was decided ruby red would look better when filmed in Technicolor.
Baum’s stories continued to inspire further adaptations. The animated film Journey Back To Oz, starring Garland’s daughter, Liza Minnelli, was released in 1972, while a live-action adventure, Return To Oz, came to cinemas in 1985.
Outside of Hollywood, stage musical Wicked premiered in 2003 to rave reviews, later becoming the second-highest grossing Broadway show of all time.
In February it was announced a modern reimagining of the original book and film was being produced by New Line Cinema. So, it seems Dorothy was wrong – there’s actually no place like the Land of Oz.