Lyman Frank Baum (15 May 1856 – 5 May 1919) was an American author, poet, playwright, actor and independent filmmaker, best known today as the creator, along with illustrator W. W. Denslow, of one of the most popular books in American children's literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, better known now as simply The Wizard of Oz. He wrote thirteen sequels, nine other fantasy novels, and a plethora of other works (45 novels in total, 83 short stories, over 200 poems, an unknown number of scripts, and many miscellaneous writings), and made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen.
Easton Press L. Frank Baum books
Franklin Library L. Frank Baum books
L. Frank Baum biography
Baum was born in Chittenango, New York in 1856, into a devout Methodist family of German (paternal line) and Scots-Irish (maternal line) origin, the seventh of nine children born to Cynthia Stanton and Benjamin Ward Baum, only five of whom survived into adulthood. He was named "Lyman" after his father's brother, but always disliked this name, and preferred to go by his middle name, "Frank". His mother, Cynthia Stanton, was a direct descendant of Thomas Stanton, one of the four Founders of what is now Stonington, Connecticut.Benjamin Baum was a wealthy businessman, originally a barrel maker, who had made his fortune in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. Baum grew up on his parents' expansive estate, Rose Lawn, which he always remembered fondly as a sort of paradise. As a young child, he was tutored at home with his siblings, but at the age of 12 he was sent to study at Peekskill Military Academy. He was a sickly child given to daydreaming, and his parents may have thought he needed toughening up. But after two utterly miserable years at the military academy, he was allowed to return home. Frank Joslyn Baum, in his biography, To Please a Child, claimed that this was following an incident described as a heart attack, though there is no contemporary evidence of this (and much evidence that material in Frank J.'s biography was fabricated).
Baum started writing at an early age, perhaps due to an early fascination with printing. His father bought him a cheap printing press, and he used it to produce The Rose Lawn Home Journal with the help of his younger brother, Henry (Harry) Clay Baum, with whom he had always been close. The brothers published several issues of the journal and included advertisements they may have sold. By the time he was 17, Baum had established a second amateur journal, The Stamp Collector, printed an 11-page pamphlet called Baum's Complete Stamp Dealers' Directory, and started a stamp dealership with his friends.
At the age of 20, Baum took on a new vocation: the breeding of fancy poultry, which was a national craze at the time. He specialized in raising a particular breed of fowl, the Hamburg (chicken). In 1880 he established a monthly trade journal, The Poultry Record, and in 1886, when Baum was 30 years old, his first book was published: The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs.
Theater career
At about the same time, Baum embarked upon his lifetime infatuation with the theater,[7] a devotion which would repeatedly lead him to failure and near-bankruptcy. His first such failure occurred when a local theatrical company duped him into replenishing their stock of costumes, with the promise of leading roles that never came his way. Disillusioned, Baum left the theatre—temporarily—and went to work as a clerk in his brother-in-law's dry goods company in Syracuse. At one point, he found another clerk locked in a store room dead, an apparent suicide. This incident appears to have inspired his locked room story, "The Suicide of Kiaros", first published in the literary journal, The White Elephant.Yet Baum could never stay away from the stage long. He continued to take roles in plays, performing under the stage names of Louis F. Baum and George Brooks.
In 1880, his father built him a theatre in Richburg, New York, and Baum set about writing plays and gathering a company to act in them. The Maid of Arran, a melodrama with songs based on William Black's novel A Princess of Thule, proved a modest success. Baum not only wrote the play but composed songs for it (making it a prototypical musical, as its songs relate to the narrative), and acted in the leading role. His aunt, Katharine Gray, played his character's aunt. She was the founder of Syracuse Oratory School, and Baum advertised his services in her catalog to teach theatre, including stage business, playwriting, directing, and translating (French, German, and Italian), revision, and operettas, though he was not employed to do so. On November 9, 1882, Baum married Maud Gage, a daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, a famous women's suffrage and radical feminist activist. While Baum was touring with The Maid of Arran, the theatre in Richburg caught fire during a production of Baum's ironically-titled parlor drama, Matches, and destroyed not only the theatre, but the only known copies of many of Baum's scripts, including Matches, as well as costumes and props.
The South Dakota years
In July 1888 Baum and his wife moved to Aberdeen, South Dakota, where he opened a store, "Baum's Bazaar". His habit of giving out wares on credit led to the eventual bankrupting of the store, so Baum turned to editing a local newspaper, The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, where he wrote a famous column, "Our Landlady". Baum's description of Kansas in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is based on his experiences in drought-ridden South Dakota.
Writing
After Baum's newspaper failed in 1891, he and his family moved to Chicago, Illinois, where Baum took a job reporting for the Evening Post. For several years he edited a magazine for advertising agencies focused on window displays in stores. The major department stores created elaborate Christmas time fantasies, using clockwork mechanism that made it seem that people were moving. Children thought it was magic, and adults wondered if there was not a man behind the curtain pulling the levers. In 1897 he wrote and published Mother Goose in Prose a collection of Mother Goose rhymes written as prose stories, and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. Mother Goose was a moderate success, and allowed Baum to quit his door-to-door job.In 1899 Baum partnered with illustrator W. W. Denslow, to publish Father Goose: His Book, a collection of nonsense poetry. The book was a success, becoming the best selling children's book of the year.
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Two years after Wizard's publication, Baum and Denslow teamed up with composer Paul Tietjens and director Julian Mitchell to produce a musical stage version of the book. It ran on Broadway 293 stage nights from 1902 to 1911, and also successfully toured the United States. The stage version starred Dave Montgomery and Fred Stone as the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow respectively, which shot the pair to instant fame at the time. The stage version differed quite a bit from the book, and was aimed primarily at adults. Toto was replaced with Imogene the Cow, and Tryxie Tryfle, a waitress and Pastoria, a streetcar operator were added as fellow cyclone victims.
Another traditional element that Baum intentionally omitted was the emphasis on romance. He considered romantic love to be uninteresting for young children, as well as largely incomprehensible. In The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the only element of romance lay in the backstory of the Tin Woodman, which explains his condition and does not otherwise affect the tale, and that of the Golden Cap; the only other stories with such elements were The Scarecrow of Oz and Tik-Tok of Oz, both based on dramatizations, which Baum regarded warily until his readers accepted them.
Later life and work
With the success of Wizard, Baum and Denslow hoped lightning would strike a third time and in 1901 published Dot and Tot of Merryland. The book was one of Baum's weakest, and its failure further strained his faltering relationship with Denslow. It would be their last collaboration.Several times during the development of the Oz series, Baum declared that he had written his last Oz book and devoted himself to other works of fantasy fiction based in other magical lands, including The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus and Queen Zixi of Ix. However, persuaded by popular demand, letters from children, and the failure of his new books, he returned to the series each time. All of his novels have fallen into public domain in most jurisdictions, and many are available through Project Gutenberg.
Later in life Baum was plagued with debt and illness. Because of his lifelong love of theatre, he often financed elaborate musicals, often to his financial detriment. One of Baum's worst financial endevors was his Fairylogues and Radio Plays (1908), which combined a slideshow, film, and live actors with a lecture by Baum as if he were giving a travelogue to Oz. However, Baum ran into trouble and could not pay his debts to the company who produced the films, and did not get back to a stable financial situation until almost a decade later, after he sold the royalty rights to many of his earlier works, including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
His final book, Glinda of Oz was published a year after his death in 1920 but the Oz series was continued long after his death by other authors, notably Ruth Plumly Thompson who wrote an additional nineteen Oz books. Baum made use of several pseudonyms for some of his other, non-Oz books. They include:
Edith Van Dyne (the Aunt Jane's Nieces series)
Laura Bancroft (Twinkle and Chubbins, Policeman Bluejay)
Floyd Akers (the Sam Steele series)
Suzanne Metcalf (Annabel)
Schuyler Staunton (Daughters of Destiny)
John Estes Cooke
Capt. Hugh Fitzgerald
Baum also anonymously wrote The Last Egyptian: A Romance of the Nile.
Death
Baum died on May 6, 1919 and was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz book 1
Come along, Toto, she said. We will go to the Emerald City and ask the Great Oz how to get back to Kansas again.Swept away from her home in Kansas by a tornado, Dorothy and her dog Toto find themselves stranded in the fantastical Land of Oz. As instructed by the Good Witch of the North and the Munchkins, Dorothy sets off on the yellow brick road to try and find her way to the Emerald City and the Wizard of Oz, who can help her get home. With her companions the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion, Dorothy experiences an adventure full of friendship, magic and danger. A much-loved children's classic, The Wizard of Oz continues to delight readers young and old with its enchanting tale of witches, flying monkeys and silver shoes.
The Marvelous Land of Oz - The Wizard of Oz Book 2
Few fantasy lands have captured our hearts and imaginations as has the marvelous land of Oz. For over four generations, children and adults alike have reveled in the magical adventures of its beloved folk. Now, for the first time in over seventy years, the second book about Oz is presented here in the same deluxe format as the rare first edition, complete with all 16 of the original John R. Neill color plates, its colorful pictorial binding, and the many black-and-white illustrations that bring it to joyous life.
First issued in 1904, L. Frank Baum's The Marvelous Land of Oz is the story of the wonderful adventures of the young boy named Tip as he travels throughout the many lands of Oz. Here he meets with our old friends the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman, as well as some new friends like Jack Pumpkinhead, the Wooden Sawhorse, the Highly Magnified Woggle-Bug, and the amazing Gump. How they thwart the wicked plans of the evil witch Mombi and overcome the rebellion of General Jinjur and her army of young women is a tale as exciting and endearing today as it was when first published over eighty years ago.
Ozma of Oz - The Wizard of Oz Book 3
Readers
of all ages will welcome the chance to be reunited with Dorothy Gale
and such beloved characters as the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly
Lion, as well as to meet new favorites such as the Hungry Tiger, whose
appetite is never satisfied; Princess Langwidere, who has thirty heads;
Billina, a talking chicken; and Tiktok, a mechanical man.
Blown
overboard while sailing with her uncle, Dorothy finds herself in the
fairy realm of Ev. She sets out with her friends to rescue the Queen of
Ev and her ten children, who have been imprisoned by the cruel Nome
King. But even Ozma, the wise Ruler of Oz, is no match for the clever
king, and it's up to Dorothy to save everyone from terrible danger. But
will the Nome King's enchantments be too much even for the plucky little
girl from Kansas?
Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz - The Wizard of Oz Book 4
When Dorothy recovered her senses they were still falling, but not so fast. The top of the buggy caught the air like a parachute or an umbrella filled with wind, and held them back so that they floated downward with a gentle motion that was not so very disagreeable to bear. The worst thing was their terror of reaching the bottom of this great crack in the earth, and the natural fear that sudden death was about to overtake them at any moment.
The Road to Oz - The Wizard of Oz Book 5
The Emerald City of Oz - The Wizard of Oz Book 6
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
Every child knows about Santa Claus, the jolly man who brings gifts to all on Christmas. There are many stories that tell of his life, but the delightful version relayed in The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is by far the most charming and original of all. Only L. Frank Baum, the man who created the wonderful land of Oz, could have told Santa's tale in such rich and imaginative detail.L. Frank Baum quotes
"There is no place like home."
"Everything has to come to an end, sometime."
"The true courage is in facing danger when you are afraid."
"A heart is not judged by how much you love, but by how much you are loved by others."
"No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire."
"Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity."
"I believe that dreams day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing — are likely to lead to the betterment of the world."
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"
"I have learned to regard fame as a will-o-the-wisp which, when caught, is not worth the possession; but to please a child is a sweet and lovely thing that warms one's heart and brings its own reward."
"Never give up. No one knows what's going to happen next."
Books
Oz works
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904)
Ozma of Oz (1907)
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908)
The Road to Oz (1909)
The Emerald City of Oz (1910)
The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913)
Tik-Tok of Oz (1914)
The Scarecrow of Oz (1915)
Rinkitink in Oz (1916)
The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)
The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918)
The Magic of Oz (1919, posthumously published)
Glinda of Oz (1920, posthumously published)
Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz (1905)
The Woggle-Bug Book (1905)
Little Wizard Stories of Oz (1913)
Non-Oz works
Baum's Complete Stamp Dealer's Directory (1873)
The Mackrummins (lost play, 1882)
The Maid of Arran (play, 1882)
Matches (lost play, 1882)
Kilmourne, or O'Connor's Dream (lost? play opened 4 April 1883)
The Queen of Killarney (lost? play, 1883)
Our Landlady (newspaper stories, 1890-1891)
The Book of the Hamburgs (poultry guide, 1896)
By the Candelabra's Glare (poetry, 1897)
Mother Goose in Prose (prose retellings of Mother Goose rhymes, (1897)
Father Goose: His Book (nonsense poetry, 1899)
The Magical Monarch of Mo (Originally published in 1900 as A New Wonderland) (fantasy, 1903)
The Army Alphabet (poetry, 1900)
The Navy Alphabet (poetry, 1900)
The Songs of Father Goose (Father Goose, set to music by Alberta N. Hall Burton, 1900)
The Art of Decorating Dry Goods Windows and Interiors (trade publication, 1900)
Dot and Tot of Merryland (fantasy, 1901)
American Fairy Tales (fantasy, 1901)
The Master Key: An Electric Fairy Tale (fantasy, 1901)
The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902)
The Enchanted Island of Yew (fantasy, 1903)
Queen Zixi of Ix (fantasy, 1905)
John Dough and the Cherub (fantasy, 1906)
Father Goose's Year Book: Quaint Quacks and Feathered Shafts for Mature Children (nonsense poetry for adults, 1907)
Mortal for an Hour or The Fairy Prince or Prince Marvel (play, 1909)
The Pipes O' Pan (play, 1909, with George Scarborough; only the first act was ever completed)
L. Frank Baum's Juvenile Speaker; Readings and Recitations in Prose and Verse, Humorous and Otherwise (also known as Baum's Own Book for Children, collection of revised work, 1910)
The Daring Twins: A Story for Young Folk (novel, 1911; reprinted in 2006 as The Secret of the Lost Fortune)
The Sea Fairies (fantasy, 1911)
Sky Island (fantasy, 1912)
Phoebe Daring: A Story for Young Folk (novel, 1912; reprinted in 2008 as Unjustly Accused!)
Our Married Life (novel, 1912) [lost]
Johnson (novel, 1912) [lost]
King Bud of Noland, or The Magic Cloak (musical play, 1913; music by Louis F. Gottschalk, revised as the scenario to the film, The Magic Cloak of Oz)
Molly Oodle (novel, 1914) [lost]
The Mystery of Bonita (novel, 1914) [lost]
Stagecraft, or, The Adventures of a Strictly Moral Man (musical play, 1914; music by Louis F. Gottschalk)
The Uplift of Lucifer, or Raising Hell: An Allegorical Squazosh (musical play, music by Louis F. Gottschalk, 1915)
The Uplifter's Minstrels (musical play, 1916; music by Byron Gay)
The Orpheus Road Show: A Paraphrastic Compendium of Mirth (musical play, 1917; music by Louis F. Gottschalk)
Sam Steele's Adventures - The Scream of the Sacred Ape (novel, 2006) First publication under Baum's name of The Boy Fortune Hunters in China (1909).
Sam Steele's Adventures - The Amazing Bubble Car (novel, 2008) First publication under Baum's name of Sam Steele's Adventures in Panama (1907)
Short stories
(This list omits those that appeared in Our Landlady, American Fairy Tales, Little Wizard Stories of Oz, and Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz.)
They Played a New Hamlet (28 April 1895)
A Cold Day on the Railroad (26 May 1895)
Who Called 'Perry?' (19 January 1896)
Yesterday at the Exhibition (2 February 1896)
My Ruby Wedding Ring (12 October 1896)
The Man with the Red Shirt (c.1897, told to Matilda Jewell Gage, who wrote it down in 1905)
How Scroggs Won the Reward (5 May 1897)
The Extravagance of Dan (18 May 1897)
The Return of Dick Weemins (July 1897)
The Suicide of Kiaros (September 1897)
A Shadow Cast Before (December 1897)
The Mating Day (September 1898)
Aunt Hulda's Good Time (26 October 1899)
The Loveridge Burglary (January 1900)
The Bad Man (February 1901)
The King Who Changed His Mind (1901)
The Runaway Shadows or A Trick of Jack Frost (5 May 1901)
(The Strange Adventures of) An Easter Egg (29 March 1902)
The Ryl of the Lilies (12 April 1903)
The Maid of Athens: A College Fantasy (play treatment, 1903; with Emerson Hough)
Chrome Yellow (1904, Unpublished; held in The Baum Papers at Syracuse University)
Mr. Rumple's Chill (1904, Lost)
Bess of the Movies (1904, Lost)
The Diamondback (1904, First page missing)
A Kidnapped Santa Claus (December 1904)
The Woggle-Bug Book: The Unique Adventures of the Woggle-Bug (12 January 1905)
Prologue from Animal Fairy Tales (January 1905)
The Story of Jaglon (January 1905)
The Stuffed Alligator (February 1905)
The King of Gee-Whiz (play treatment, February 1905, with Emerson Hough)
The Discontented Gopher (March 1905)
The Forest Oracle (April 1905)
The Enchanted Buffalo (May 1905)
The Pea-Green Poodle (June 1905)
Nelebel's Fairyland (June 1905)
The Jolly Giraffe of Jomb (July 1905)
Jack Burgitt's Honor (1 August 1905)
The Troubles of Pop Wombat (August 1905)
The Transformation of Bayal the Porcupine (September 1905)
The Tiger's Eye: A Jungle Fairy Tale (1905)
The Yellow Ryl (1906)
The Witchcraft of Mary-Marie (1908)
The Man-Fairy (December 1910)
Juggerjook (December 1910)
The Tramp and the Baby (October 1911)
Bessie's Fairy Tale (December 1911)
Aunt 'Phroney's Boy (December 1912)
The Littlest Giant - An Oz Story (1918)
An Oz Book (1919)
Under pseudonyms
As Edith Van Dyne:
Aunt Jane's Nieces (1906)
Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad (1906)
Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville (1908)
Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work (1906)
Aunt Jane's Nieces in Society (1910)
Aunt Jane's Nieces and Uncle John (1911)
The Flying Girl (1911)
Aunt Jane's Nieces on Vacation (1912)
The Flying Girl and Her Chum (1912)
Aunt Jane's Nieces on the Ranch (1913)
Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West (1914)
Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross (1915, revised and republished in 1918)
Mary Louise (1916)
Mary Louise in the Country (1916)
Mary Louise Solves a Mystery (1917)
Mary Louise and the Liberty Girls (1918)
Mary Louise Adopts a Soldier (1919; largely ghostwritten based on a fragment by Baum; subsequent books in the series are by Emma Speed Sampson)
As Floyd Akers:
The Boy Fortune Hunters in Alaska (1906; originally published as Sam Steele's Adventures on Land and Sea by "Capt. Hugh Fitzgerald")
The Boy Fortune Hunters in Panama (1907; originally published as Sam Steele's Adventures in Panama by "Capt. Hugh Fitzgerald"; reprinted in 2008 as The Amazing Bubble Car)
The Boy Fortune Hunters in Egypt (1908; reprinted in 2008 as The Treasure of Karnak)
The Boy Fortune Hunters in China (1909; reprinted in 2006 as The Scream of the Sacred Ape)
The Boy Fortune Hunters in Yucatan (1910)
The Boy Fortune Hunters in the South Seas (1911)
As Schuyler Staunton:
The Fate of a Crown (1905)
Daughters of Destiny (1906)
As John Estes Cooke:
Tamawaca Folks: A Summer Comedy (1907)
As Suzanne Metcalf:
Annabel, A Story for Young Folks (1906)
As Laura Bancroft:
The Twinkle Tales (1906; collected as Twinkle and Chubbins, though Chubbins is not in all the stories)
Policeman Bluejay (1907; also known as Babes in Birdland, it was published under Baum's name shortly before his death)
Anonymous:
The Last Egyptian: A Romance of the Nile (1908)
Source and additional information: L. Frank Baum