Oz

The “First Literary Biography”? Then What’s This?

source: Oz and Ends

As for “literary,” Katharine M. Rogers, author of L. Frank Baum: Creator of Oz (2002), was a professor of English and a literary scholar who analyzed Baum’s fiction in detail. So, you know, I’m going to show the cover of that book instead of the new one.

Published Mon, Aug 24

The Twenty-First of This Month

source: Oz and Ends

L. Frank Baum almost certainly never intended people to know that Ozma had a birthday on 21 August. Throughout The Road to Oz, published one hundred years ago, characters refer only to the party planned for “the twenty-first of this month." But earlier in the book Dorothy mentions that it's A...

Published Thu, Aug 20

Humbugs Inside the Earth

source: Oz and Ends

Yesterday I mentioned my article on Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz in the latest Baum Bugle. Here is a passage from the book itself, as L. Frank Baum has his usual fun with authority figures. “We don’t have to prove it,” answered Dorothy, indignantly. “If you had any sense at all you’d known it was th...

Published Thu, Jun 18

Dorothy and the Wizard at 100

source: Oz and Ends

And then there's the plot issue. Baum literally wrote his characters into a hole, and then got them out by having Princess Ozma wish them to Oz with her immensely powerful Magic Belt--a dea ex machina. She had, after all, promised Dorothy she'd look in on her at the end of the previous Oz book.

Published Wed, Jun 17

The Creativity of L. Frank Baum

source: Oz and Ends

Here's an extract from Schwartz's interview with the Boston Globe this weekend: A. He [Baum] had this dream when he was a kid of being a great writer, and life got in the way. The amazing thing is that he got back to it. He followed his path to his true self. That's what gives the yellow brick road its...

Published Mon, Jun 15

Where to Find Finding Oz

source: Oz and Ends

Here are two long interviews with Evan Schwartz, author of Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story-- at Blair Frodelius's Daily Ozmapolitan website. on WBUR's On Point interview and call-in radio show.

Published Fri, May 1

Opinion: Finding a Little Too Much in Oz

source: Oz and Ends

Last fall I met Evan I. Schwartz, whose book Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story has just been published. Schwartz had been researching the historical context which inspired Baum. He's shared some of that on his website for the book.

Published Thu, Apr 23

Baum and the Bad Guys

source: Oz and Ends

Baum based The Maid of Arran on William Black's novel A Princess of Thule, so he wasn't responsible for the whole story, but he added elements that struck me as particularly Baumian. (I should acknowledge that I'm basing these comments on my memory of a show boiled down from Baum's longer sc...

Published Wed, Feb 25