The Lost Princess of Oz was the other L. Frank Baum book that I could not find as a kid. I was buying the Rand McNally paperback Oz series and this title, along with Rinkitink in Oz, was never published that way. It confused me for years! I finally did pick up a Reilly & Lee white cover copy, and eventually a first edition in dustjacket.
Some of John R. Neill's illustrations for this book have an interesting delicacy, particularly the color plates. I think this is partly due to the pastel color scheme used in the printing of these pages. The Oz books usually follow a certain color scheme in the plates - Tik-Tok and Scarecrow both used a lot of peach and lavender, Rinkitink added some strong jolts of red, Lost Princess has more yellow, pink and blue.
I also have a copy of a second printing that supposedly was in the family of Jack Snow, who would later write two Oz books as well as a Who's Who. I don't know if this is true - the name in the book is Lyndon Snow, written in a child's block lettering with an address of 60 First Ave. - no city or state. I doubt the story, but if anyone knows differently, I'd love to hear about it.
Posts
3 comments:
From what I've heard, it does sound very unlikely that my copy of Lost Princess (mentioned above) was connected with the family of Jack Snow - not too much of a surprise there, I think it was wishful thinking on someone's part!
Bill,
My Great grandmother was Martha Everts Holden, the author of Amber Glints. W.W. Denslow was married to Amber's daughter. I love your blog.
Cathy Turner Gamlen
Thanks! What fun to hear from a relative of the author.
Did you know that Denslow dedicated "Denslow's Mother Goose" to Ann Waters - Denslow's wife and Martha's daughter? Also L. Frank Baum included a verse about Annie Waters in "Father Goose, His Book", Baum & Denslow's first great success!
Post a Comment