The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

In Russia, the main characters created by American writer Frank Baum are familiar to readers from the book «The Wizard of the Emerald City», in which the original text of Baum's first story about the land of Oz was presented in a free author's translation by A. M. Volkov. However, few know that in his homeland, the USA, the classic of children's literature Lyman Frank Baum is the author of a whole series of books about the land of Oz. The story of a girl who was swept away by a hurricane into a magical land inhabited by funny little people, flying monkeys, and talking animals is just the beginning of a great epic written by Baum. He took to the pen as a child - together with his brother, he published a family magazine. Soon after getting married, Frank opened a small shop in one of the Dakota towns, where all sorts of goods were sold. To the children who came in, he told wonderful stories, improvising on the spot. One of them, about the adventures of Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman, was published at the very end of the 19th century. After about a decade, Baum grew tired of writing new and new books about the land he had invented, but young readers demanded sequels, and Baum resigned himself to his lifetime role as the «court historian of the land of Oz». The last book in this series - «Glinda of Oz» - was published after the writer's death.

The first edition of the story about the wizard from the land of Oz was published with illustrations by William Denslow. They also adorn this edition. Baum met Denslow in 1893. By that time, the artist was already 37 years old, and he did not consider himself a book illustrator - he earned his living drawing posters and placards, labels, and ex-libris. However, Baum liked Denslow's style - he used clear contour lines and large solid areas without smooth color transitions. This style was exactly what was needed for a children's book. Baum was right - his story about Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman with Denslow's illustrations soon became a bestseller, and for the artist himself, collaboration with Baum became the pinnacle of his career. Baum began to write new books about the land of Oz. They were illustrated by another artist - John R. Neill. He started his career by drawing comics for one of the Philadelphia newspapers. Like in the case of Denslow, the illustrations for Frank Baum's stories about the magical land of Oz made him famous in the USA. Neill continued to work on them even after Frank's death, when new books about the adventures of the heroes in the land of Oz were continued to be written by Ruth Thompson. When she stepped away from this work, Neill himself created several more stories about the Land of Oz and illustrated them himself.