When Reilly & Britton published their series of Baum's Snuggle Tales in 1916-17, they bypassed John R. Neill for new cover designs and instead used Julia Dyar Hardy. I haven't been able to find out much about Hardy, other than the fact that she did illustrate other books at that time.
Another example of her work in a Reilly & Britton title is Betty's Policeman; she also provided illustrations for the series of Snip and Snap books, for the Volland company, the publishers of Ruth Plumly Thompson's Perhappsy Chaps and Princess of Cozytown.
In Hardy's Snuggle Tale
covers we do get to see a few Oz celebrities - Jack Pumpkinhead, Tip,
and the Sawhorse are shown above, and a Scarecrow doll appears on the cover of Once Upon a Time. The Gingerbread Man shows John Dough, who does make a cameo appearance in The Road to Oz. But the Yellow Hen (featured on the
book of the same title) isn't Billina - instead it's an earlier hen from a story in
Mother Goose in Prose.
I've always assumed the Scarecrow doll pictured on the cover of Once Upon a Time is one of those delivered to kids as described in the Queer Visitors comic, "How the Wogglebug and His Friends Visited Santa Claus."
ReplyDeleteI like that idea! It would be even better if it turned out that someone at the time had actually manufactured Oz Dolls... The ones produced by the Oz Toy Manufacturing Co. were a little later than this...
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