The Oz books form a book series that begins with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and relate the fictional history of the Land of Oz. Oz was created by author L. Frank Baum, who went on to write fourteen full-length Oz books. All of Baum written books are in the public domain in the United States. Even while he was alive, Baum was styled as "the Royal Historian of Oz" to emphasize the concept that Oz is an actual place. The illusion created was that characters such as Dorothy and Princess Ozma related their adventures in Oz to Baum themselves, by means of wireless telegraph.
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Additional books by Baum
Baum also wrote Oz-related stage plays: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1901) with music by Paul Tietjens and Nathaniel D. Mann, The Wizard of Oz (1902) (music by Tietjens et al.; with jokes by Glen MacDonough), The Woggle-Bug (1905) with music by Frederick Chapin, The Rainbow's Daughter, or The Magnet of Love (February 1909) with music by Manuel Klein, revised in April 1909 as Ozma of Oz, and ultimately produced, with music by Louis F. Gottschalk as The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. Also in 1909, he wrote a play called The Girl from Oz. The manuscript is held in the archives at Syracuse University, but apparently its relation to Oz is little more than nominal (it is also known as The Girl from Tomorrow and was later adapted for radio by Frank Joslyn Baum), as is also the case with the short story, "The Littlest Giant", a rather brutal tale designated in two lines to be in the Gillikin country of Oz. With Gottschalk writing the music, he wrote an unproduced stage version of The Patchwork Girl of Oz in November 1913, that was developed into the film scenario.
Subsequent Oz books by other writers
The Oz books that were written subsequent to Baum's death can be classified into two categories:
The Oz books of Sherwood Smith, published in 2005 and 2006, are officially recognized as canon by The Baum Trust.
Subsequent books by other writers published by Reilly & Lee
Ruth Plumly Thompson's style was markedly different from Baum's. Her tales harked back to more traditional fairy tales. She often included a small kingdom, with a prince or princess who saves his or her kingdom and regains the throne or saves Oz from invasion. Thompson even respelled Baum's respelling "Nome" as the more traditional "Gnome".
Illustrator John R. Neill's vision of Oz is more manic than Thompson or Baum's. Houses often get up and do battle, and everything can be alive. His entries take Oz's color scheme (blue for Munchkin Country, red for Quadling Country, etc.) to an extreme, extending it to sky and skin colors.
Jack Snow was a Baum scholar, and even offered to take over the series at age twelve when Baum died. Snow's books lack any characters created by Thompson or Neill, although he did create his own.
The last two Oz books published by Reilly & Lee:
Additional books by the earlier writers
Jack Snow wrote Who's Who in Oz, a guide to characters from the first 39 Oz books, as well as a short story titled "A Murder in Oz," in which Tip takes his life back from Ozma, and both are ultimately restored as twin siblings.
Oz books by other writers
Some are in line with the originals, while others deviate in various ways.
Alternate Oz books
Below are some books which deal with alternate versions of Oz, that do not adhere to the original and official canon by L. Frank Baum.