The Emerald City

I recently picked up a very nice copy of the second printing of The Emerald City of Oz, originally published in 1910. The second printing is marked by a new, simplified cover design which was based on the endpapers of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. Otherwise, the physical aspects of the book remain the same as the first printing. 

The Emerald City was an elaborately produced book, with the fanciful addition of metallic ink in the 16 color plates. An interesting point in this second printing is a change in the quality of the metallic green ink.

The first printing is seen on the right of this picture. The green ink is brighter with a stronger gleam than the ink used in the second printing, which is seen on the left. ( As always, click on the picture for a larger image). After this printing, the metallic ink was dropped from the book's production.

In the 1990's, Books of Wonder published an edition of this book using metallic ink on the color plates. For their edition, gold glitter was added to the ink to produce increased sparkle. This can be seen on the left of the picture above. More recently, The Bradford Exchange also produced an edition with metallic plates. Their version with a deeper green can be seen on the right of the picture.

The original cover design also used metallic green ink, as well as metallic silver. The elaborate cover was produced in both a dark blue and a light blue binding. As can be seen below, the new cover is quite a step back from the active, bustling original cover design!