The Oz Enthusiast

The Lion

2011-12-27T07:45:00.028-06:00

Here's a fun item that found its way under the Christmas tree this year. This is a toy lion, of the same variety used by Graham Rawle as the Cowardly Lion in his 2008 illustrations for The Wizard of Oz.

Apparently the lion used in the illustrations was found in a vintage shop in Minneapolis. This one turned up at an antique show at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Perhaps they're related?

As you can see, the lion is in a permanent seated position. For the illustrations, rear legs had to be added digitally to give a greater range of poses!

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-24T07:39:00.030-06:00

Here in time for Christmas is another early newspaper piece by John R. Neill, "Tostynge Appels at ye Merrie Yuletide". This was published in the Philadelphia North American newspaper on Christmas Day, 1901.

The characters in this remind me of Neill's Life Among the Macaronis series of drawings - the elongated figures and Colonial time period are the same, although that series appeared ca. 1904-05. This piece and the Christmas Eve page shown in my last post are both quite early Neill pieces!

Christmas is Coming

2011-12-22T07:52:00.033-06:00

Here's a newspaper page from 110 years ago, December, 22 1901. This features a grand and colorful John R. Neill drawing of a Christmas tree and gifts, together with photos of Christmas preparations. You can even see a typical Neill Santa in toy form, riding a toy horse! The one curious thing to my eye, for the time period, is the lack of a father in this family group - he's present in the photos, but not in the drawing.

The Musical at NYPL

2011-12-16T06:59:00.003-06:00

I'm afraid I've been neglecting my blog this month - but December is always a busy time! The New York Public Library is featuring the 1903 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz as the musical of the month for December in a series of blogs, written by a variety of authors - including this entry by David Maxine of Hungry Tiger Press. A version of the libretto for the show is available as well.

Here I have a couple more pieces of sheet music from the Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz. Must You was a hit for David Montgomery, who played the Tin Woodman and contributed to the lyric for this song. The Tale of a Cassowary is one of a number of songs added to the show in 1904, for what was known as the Edition De Luxe. Recently I read an interview with a producer of the current Broadway show Spiderman, who mentioned the exciting "new" concept of possibly freshening the show each season with new songs and ideas. Guess what - it's a very old concept!

Paperback Denslow

2011-12-01T07:48:00.011-06:00

It's been a while since I've had a new W.W. Denslow book cover to show! Here we have a Rand McNally paperback printing of A Modern Corsair, by Richard Henry Savage - the man who never learned the proper use of exclamation marks!!

The previous Rand McNally titles that I've shown have all been hardcover books. But Denslow designed quite a few paperbacks for the company as well; many times he did the same title in both paper and hardcover, but the designs don't tend to be the same.

For example, on the right is the hardcover version of A Modern Corsair, courtesy of Cindy Ragni of Avant-Garde Books. A shipwreck is a prominent feature of both the hard and soft covers. This must play into the story, but I haven't read this one yet to know the details! The hardcovers make use of bold, colorful stampings, while the paperbacks feature more linear designs.

For another example, here's the hardcover version of In The Swim, also written by Savage. Bill Thompson recently turned up a paperback version with a very different cover design. The paperback cover is much more of an illustration for the story, which deals in part with shenanigans on Wall Street. On the other hand, the hardcover makes use of one of Denslow's more generic shield designs. However, both incorporate a golden calf, symbolizing the worship of money that becomes the downfall of several characters in the story.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T09:01:00.007-06:00

It's a good thing Billina isn't a turkey!

Progress

2011-11-21T08:40:00.001-06:00

Here's a quick post to show progress on the Oz window. On the right, I'm working on painting details on various pieces before firing them in a kiln. With any luck, the window will be done this week!

Ike Morgan

2011-11-13T08:00:00.000-06:00

I was recently contacted by Ike Morgan's great nephew, who is working on gathering information on his great uncle. Unfortunately, I didn't have much to add to his knowledge - but he kindly allowed me to post this image of a lovely portrait in his possession (on the left) of Ike Morgan's sister - his grandmother.

In looking about, there doesn't seem to be much information readily available about Morgan. My posting from earlier this year has a few tidbits (click here). He started as a newspaper artist - just like W.W. Denslow and John R. Neill. Unfortunately, newspaper art is very ephemeral and tends to be forgotten over the years, making it more difficult to investigate.

I did find that he illustrated a couple short stories published in 1907 in the Los Angeles Herald - the image on the right is from one, titled Mr Blink's Automobile. Two of these can be found online at Chronicling America, a site featuring scans of newspapers from 1826 - 1922.

Morgan illustrated a number of books - for L. Frank Baum, he contributed illustrations to American Fairy Tales, as well as illustrating The Wogglebug Book. He illustrated the Kids of Many Colors series for Grace Duffie Boylan, which received quite a bit of favorable coverage. A number of reviews for the book can be found in the newspaper archives mentioned above.

One piece I ran across is the painting on the left, which was sold by Buchard Galleries in 2004. It's a charming image and makes me wonder if Morgan did many paintings.

And, he designed the cover for the 1902 Montgomery Ward catalog. Advertising for this specifically calls out Morgan as a well known artist!

Oz Window

2011-11-06T08:07:00.001-06:00

Back in August, I mentioned that we would be making another Oz-themed stained glass window for a local client. It's been underway, and here are a couple shots of the progress.

This window is based on the endpapers drawn by John R. Neill for Ozma of Oz, L. Frank Baum's third Oz title. We made some minor adjustments to the image, but it's a pretty straight-forward adaptation of the original illustration. Above, you can see the pattern, or cartoon, for the window.

On the left, pieces are being cut and fit to create the window. Below, all the glass has been cut and fit, and painting on the characters is beginning.

It won't be long before the window is ready for assembly!

I'll Get You My Pretty!

2011-10-23T07:25:00.003-05:00

Just in time for Halloween - here's a tray of Wicked Witch heads in production at the R. John Wright doll company. The cackling must be earsplitting - Dorothy better watch out!

1901 Advertising

2011-10-18T07:53:00.000-05:00

While doing some searching online, I ran across this ad for L. Frank Baum's The Master Key. I thought it was pretty humorous - and found it distinctly odd that it makes no mention of the book's author or publisher. This was in a 1901 newspaper, the Minneapolis Journal - I'm sorry to say McCarthy's Book Store no longer exists on Nicollet Avenue!

Addams in Oz....

2011-10-16T07:15:00.001-05:00

Well, not really...but there is a cartoon by Charles Addams from the June 6, 1939 New Yorker magazine that makes me think of Oz. This was prior to the August release date for the MGM film - but could there be a connection?

This electrical creation strikes me as a mix of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman... maybe with a bit of Tik-Tok tossed in for good measure!

This original artwork is currently available from the Lewis Wayne Gallery on eBay.

Zazzle!

2011-10-10T07:00:00.039-05:00

I've finally pulled together a Zazzle shop - the OzShop - using the paintings I've been doing based on illustra- tions of Oz characters by John R. Neill. These are featured on typical Zazzle products - mugs, magnets, coasters, etc. A flash panel is installed at the bottom of this page - Take a look!

I'll continue to add new characters. And be sure to let me know if there are combinations or products you'd like to see - the possibilities are fairly endless.

The Tik-Tok Man

2011-10-06T07:31:00.000-05:00

Here's some more fun, early Oz material, thanks again to the resources of the New York Public Library digital gallery.

While poking around on their site, I ran across these two sheets of photos from The Tik-Tok Man of Oz - contact prints of characters and group shots from the 1913 stage show.
This show was a moderate success, but never made the trip to Broadway - apparently many critics found it to be too derivative of The Wizard of Oz. Still, L. Frank Baum managed to turn it into his 1914 Oz book, and it's fun to see another, live action if you like, take on some of the characters!

I've picked out a few of the photos and enlarged them - the quality isn't the best, but they're still fun to see.

Betsy & her mule, Hank.

Private Files and the Rose Princess - in the show, I believe her name was Ozma, which I've always thought must have been confusing for young fans of the books!

Betsy, Tik-Tok, Polychrome and the Shaggy Man.

A chorus of what appear to be gardeners and roses.

The Nome King and his sprites.

Queen Ann and her army.

Tik-Tok with a chorus of living clocks.

This looks like an act finale, featuring all the main characters! All these photos will enlarge if clicked upon.

Teddy Bear Bread

2011-10-02T07:42:00.005-05:00

This weekend I went to a local antique show, and ran across a fun little item - a set of postcards by W.W. Denslow advertising Teddy Bear bread. This set only has 3 cards, which read as a complete series, but there should be a fourth card - the final one which says "I'll Buy It!" and shows a boy purchasing a loaf from the teddy bear. I'll have to keep an eye out for that one! (See comments below - there's actually a fifth card as well!)

I love the fact that Teddy Bear Bread would be found for sale at "conscientious grocers". This was the time period of the pure food movement, and the Pure Food and Drug Act had been passed in 1906, to control adulterated or mislabeled food. Obviously, this could be turned into a selling point!

Queen Zixi

2011-09-25T07:31:00.029-05:00

Queen Zixi of Ix was L. Frank Baum's only full length fairy tale to be serialized before publication. It was published in monthly installments in the prestigious children's magazine St. Nicholas, prior to being released in book form.

I've just purchased a poster from 1905 advertising this story. Notice how prominently The Wizard of Oz is placed in the verbiage - it's in larger type than anything else on the poster, other than the name of the magazine! This is a clear indication of the familiarity and success of that title, due to both the book and the very successful Broadway show.

For the poster image, the publishers used a color plate illustration from the tale, showing Queen Zixi gazing at her reflection in a stream while wearing the magic cloak....but if you're familiar with the story, you'll know she doesn't achieve the results she was hoping for!

This illustration was also the basis for the book cover, as seen to the right. For this use, the illustration had to be simplified into a bolder, graphic image. The stamping process would have obliterated much of the fine detail in the original drawing.

The poster is in need of a good restoration. When that's done, I'll post some comparison photos!

Another Scarecrow

2011-09-19T22:00:00.001-05:00

I've mentioned the New York Public Library's digital galleries (here) in the past, as a good place to look for interesting images. I happened to visit the site tonight, and found this magnificent poster which I've never seen before!

Here we have Fred Stone as the Scarecrow, in the third act of The Wizard of Oz. Seeing something like this just makes me wonder how many other pieces might be out there to be discovered. I imagine there might have been a companion Tin Man poster, or possibly other characters as well - this show certainly had its share of beautifully lithographed posters!

Prince Inga

2011-09-16T08:19:00.013-05:00

This illustration in L. Frank Baum's Rinkitink in Oz has always intrigued me. It's a portrait of Prince Inga outside a castle, but the odd part is the domed structure on the left side of the drawing. This has always looked to me like John R. Neill left an unfinished portion of pencil sketch that somehow got printed with the rest of the drawing.

On the right, I've removed that part of the image. This way the drawing feels more finished to me. Admittedly, it leaves a large area of white space, but I find the overall piece much more pleasing!

Neill did do a fair amount of sketchy work, but this particular illustration has always felt like an odd combination of a lovely finished drawing and a rough sketch!

Fun Fabric

2011-09-12T08:27:00.000-05:00

As followers of my blog know, my main areas of collecting are books and artwork - but occasionally fun items pop up that I can't resist!

I recently ran across this shirt, and couldn't pass it up. What I found fascinating is the fabric, which is an adaptation of a 1903 Wizard of Oz poster. The main characters are seen in the poppy field, surrounded by the deadly flowers. I love the fact that someone took the time to rework what would have been a fairly obscure image into a printed fabric! As you can see by comparing to the picture of the original poster below, some extraneous characters were dropped, and a bit of rearranging was done.

This possibly dates from the 1970's or so - there's no real indication other than an original price of $2.98 (marked down to $1!). There seems to have been far more variety in the presentation of Oz characters prior to the 1980's and the 50th anniversary of the MGM film. The appearance of Dorothy and friends as seen in the film became the norm on merchandise - it's refreshing to see something a bit different.

An Interview with Baum

2011-09-05T09:04:00.032-05:00

L. Frank Baum was clearly a master of self promotion, and of the "story that suits the moment" style of interview. Consequently, I tend to take most of his statements with a large grain of salt. A fun example of this is an article published in the August 1909 issue of The Theatre magazine. Titled L. Frank Baum and His New Plays, this interview covers Baum's then-current theatrical projects, none of which were to make it to fruition.

According to this article - and this all sounds very optimistic, as the descriptions of the various projects are very vague for shows opening in a month or two - the fall season was to see a comic opera titled The Pipes o' Pan, an extravaganza titled either Ozma of Oz or The Rainbow's Daughter, and the opening of a new Children's Theatre in New York. Another comic opera, possibly titled Peter and Paul, was being written for Montgomery & Stone. Both this piece and the coming Ozma of Oz were said to be starring Montgomery & Stone, so there would seem to be a conflict!

Ozma of Oz did finally see production in 1913 as The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, which played in Los Angeles and toured. However this is not quite the same show described in the article - for one thing, a different composer wrote the music, and Montgomery & Stone were nowhere to be seen.

Baum does discuss Oz as well. He manages to add a year to the run of The Wizard of Oz - the show started in Chicago in 1902, and here in 1909 Baum states that it has been running 8 years. At the time of the interview, Baum also mentions that he is working on The Road to Oz, and that there will be only one more Oz book.

But the part I like best about this article, is the correction that the magazine had to publish in the next issue! While talking about the possible Peter and Paul production, Baum mentions that the music is being written by Arthur Pryor, the famous trombonist who played with John Phillip Sousa's band. Baum is quoted as attributing the success of Sousa to Pryor, something which apparently did not go down well. In the next issue of the magazine a correction was published, including a letter from Pryor expressing his astonishment at Baum's statement. The magazine wrote to Baum for an explanation, but there doesn't seem to have been a reply....perhaps this contributed to the non-existence of the Peter & Paul show!

The full article can be read here, on the Hungry Tiger Press website.

Birthday Time!

2011-08-21T08:18:00.003-05:00

Happy Birthday, Ozma!

Another Oz Window

2011-08-07T08:00:00.018-05:00

Once again, work and Oz are merging for me. A client has ordered a stained glass window based on the endpapers from Ozma of Oz. This is scheduled to be made in the next few months, and will be a fun project to work on.

Oz has been a part of our business from the beginning of our studio, over 25 years ago. One of the first things I made when I was learning stained glass was an adaptation of Ozma and Dorothy from the cover of Ozma of Oz. After a fair amount of rethinking and refining, this became the first in our ongoing series of Oz panels. I happened across the very first version of this panel in our basement recently. It's fun to compare that first attempt (on the left) with the final version!

Bradford Exchange, Book 2

2011-07-31T10:00:00.000-05:00

A couple weeks ago, I received my second Oz book from the Bradford Exchange. A question was raised in my earlier posting for this series, as to why I would bother buying this set of books since I already have the series in first editions. As to that, facsimiles fascinate me, partially due to the fact that they're never quite the same as the original thing.

A very nice job has been done with The Marvelous Land of Oz. In the comments for my posting on the first book in the series, David Maxine of Hungry Tiger Press pointed out the lesser quality in the color printing of the book, and it's true that the color plates were not quite the flat, bright images they should be. I have to say that there is a certain rough, grainy quality to the color plates in this title as well.

On the right is a comparison - a first edition plate on the left and a facsimile on the right.

But these are the best facsimile versions I've seen done - the only other attempt that I'm aware of are the Books of Wonder series, which do a very nice job of presenting the original material - but there are some deletions and certain editorial changes which have caused controversy, and the bindings are not true facsimiles of the originals. However, they are a very nice set of hardcover color-plate books available at a lower price point than the Bradford Exchange series.

Bradford is working hard to create the real heft and feeling of the original books - the stamped fabric covers have been very well done. With Wonderful Wizard, a decision was made to reproduce the book in its earliest state, with several misprints and details that were changed in later printings. Marvelous Land is a hybrid of the earliest state binding, with no silver outline to the title, but the second state text - some swapping of illustrations and a publishers line added to the copyright notice. I'm not sure why they didn't follow the same first state idea for this volume. Anyway, these are quibbles and the books are quite attractive. In the end, the only way to have a true first edition Oz book is to buy a first edition Oz book - but these make a very decent substitute.

Mid-Summer

2011-07-24T08:58:00.003-05:00

Summer always seems like a time to have an Oz project in the works - and this has been quite a summer with heat waves and storms! Here's another shot of some of my growing batch of Ozzy portraits based on John R. Neill drawings.

I still haven't come up with a particular use for these, although I've been looking into Zazzle.com. Here's a coffee mug using some of the paintings!

Father Goose Music

2011-07-10T07:58:00.093-05:00

I've been lucky this year, in being able to fill a couple holes in my collection of books by L. Frank Baum. I posted about The Navy Alphabet back in February, and now I've acquired another book published by the George M. Hill Company, The Songs of Father Goose.

I've had a later Bobbs-Merrill version of this book for quite a while (on the left), but I was happy to run across a nice copy of the first edition. It's a book that frankly holds little interest for me, as it's basically a rehash of Father Goose, His Book with the addition of music. W. W. Denslow created a new cover design, and his illustrations are reprinted within the book, in black and white - the lack of color is unfortunate. Still, it's nice to have a good example, and interesting to see how much better the printing was on the first edition, as opposed to my later copy, from approximately 1920.

The songs must have been popular in their day - the publishers issued the music in sheet music folios (which are now very scarce) as well as the book format. In fact, the cover seen on the later Bobbs-Merrill version shown above was first used on the song folios. There were also newspaper supplements, two of which are shown below. And a certain immortality was added to the music when, in the 1944 movie Meet Me in St Louis, Judy Garland asks Margaret O'Brien if she would like to sing "Did You Ever See a Rabbit Climb a Tree?" - the first song in The Songs of Father Goose!

Judy Judy Judy

2011-07-01T07:18:00.004-05:00

This is just too surreal not to show - Dorothy dolls being created by R. John Wright.

Book Fair!

2011-06-26T07:51:00.024-05:00

Our local summer book fair was held this weekend, and this year there were quite a few Oz items in the booths. The highlight was a first edition copy of Mother Goose in Prose, with an inscription by L. Frank Baum - "2 the 2 VerBecks - (Pa and kid)". This would be Frank VerBeck, who illustrated A New Wonderland for Baum. I'm afraid this one was not in my price range!

I did pick up a very nice jacketed first of John R. Neill's Lucky Bucky in Oz, which will be a good upgrade from my previous copy. A feature of the first state dustjacket is the letter from Bucky, printed on the rear flap, urging readers to buy victory bonds and stamps. After all, this was World War II, and as Bucky says, "The Nazis and Japs are harder to beat than the Nomes." !

My other acquisition was not Oz related, but a piece by another artist I collect. H. J. Ford illustrated the Fairy Book Series of colored fairy books and story books, compiled by Andrew Lang. This drawing is from The All Sorts of Stories Book, published in 1911. I have a couple other drawings by Ford, from The Yellow Fairy Book and The Arabian Nights. His style of dense line work is impressive, and it's always a thrill to run across another piece of his original art!

Winkie Programs

2011-06-21T07:57:00.011-05:00

One of the highlights of the past two Winkie conventions has been the program book created by David Maxine at Hungry Tiger Press, incorporating essays, artwork, interviews and other Ozzy surprises. A number of people have contributed work for these books, and they make a handsome addition to a collection.

I just received a copy of this year's program, the third in the series, with the convention theme of "Oz Under the Sea". Convention attendees receive a copy of the program as part of their registration - an additional perk for attendance! It's not too late - this year's Winkie Convention is July 8th to 10th, and convention information can be found here.

This year marks anniversaries of both The Sea Fairies and Pirates of Oz, and the program includes writings on both these topics. It's also packed with artwork by John R. Neill, W.W. Denslow, and other artists - and features a cover by Eric Shanower!

American Fairy Tales

2011-06-17T07:15:00.002-05:00

Here are two copies of L. Frank Baum's American Fairy Tales, published in 1901. I've had the copy on the right (with red flowers on the spine) for some time, but I just picked up the copy on the left with dark green flowers.

Both copies are worn, but this is a title that often seems to suffer from excessive wear. In fact, I've seen more copies on which the cover has nearly been completely obliterated than otherwise! I'm not sure why this should be the case - obviously white cloth tends to muck up faster than other colors, but I shouldn't think that would make the inks more vulnerable. Perhaps it's just an anomaly of the copies I've personally run across.

The green flowers seem to be less common than the red, and it's interesting to note that the copy with green flowers uses a brighter tone of red for the cover image than that seen on the version with red flowers. Also, in this case, the stamping has left a sharper impression in the cloth on the green flower example. It's all minor details, but for me that's a large part of the fun and interest of collecting!

Convention Time!

2011-06-12T11:13:00.004-05:00

Summer seems to be the time for Oz conventions and festivals! Unfortunately, I don't tend to get to any, but there are quite a few to choose from.

In previous posts I've mentioned the Chittenango Oz-Stravaganza which was held last week, and the upcoming IWOC National Convention at The Land of Oz Park in Banner Elk, North Carolina (Aug. 5 - 7 ).

There's also a Chesterton Wizard of Oz Festival in Indiana in September, and this coming weekend is the Judy Garland Festival in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

But the longest running convention is the Winkie Convention held in Pacific Grove, California, coming up on July 8 - 10. This years theme is Under the Sea, celebrating the 100th anniversary of L. Frank Baum's The Sea Fairies, and the 80th anniversary of Ruth Plumly Thompson's Pirates in Oz. There's even a WinkieCon Boutique on Zazzle, providing shirts and tote bags, featuring the two lovely images seen in this posting!

Judy's Birthday

2011-06-11T18:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday (June 10) would have marked Judy Garland's 89th birthday. So here's a silly little book in honor of the event, Judy Garland and the Hoodoo Costume!

This was published in 1945 by Whitman Publishing, as part of a series of books that built stories around popular stars of the day. There were titles starring Jane Withers, Betty Grable, Deanna Durbin, Ann Sheridan, Bonita Granville, etc. The dustjacket on this title even mentions that Judy's "unforgettable role in The Wizard of Oz marked the height in her career as a child star" - the movie itself wouldn't be released again until 1949.

The stories themselves are typical teen mystery/detective fare - but with the added spice of a Hollywood star! The whole thing is a bit of a stitch - as are the illustrations.....poor Judy!

Bradford Exchange Books

2011-06-02T16:48:00.009-05:00

Today I received my first book in the series of facsimile Oz books currently being offered by The Bradford Exchange. I wasn't among the first to sign up for this offer, as I did have to convince myself that yet another set of the books was a good idea....but curiosity finally overcame any other objections!
These books are being produced to be as close to the original printings as possible - and judging by The Wonderful Wizard, they're doing an excellent job! All the first state points of the book are present, including the earliest green version of the George M. Hill Co. stamp on the spine. The only non-original material is a numbered page signed by Robert Baum. In fact, I can easily imagine these books might cause some headaches down the road for inexperienced collectors!

The one drawback to this book is the unfortunately designed dustjacket. As this series is obviously aimed at collectors, and much care has been taken to produce a lovely book, it's difficult to understand the reasoning behind not creating reproduction jackets. I can't help thinking the publishers missed an excellent opportunity to provide a truly complete facsimile series. This will be even more evident with copies of Ozma, Road, and Patchwork Girl, all of which used completely different images on their jackets than on the book covers. As these books are being offered as a premium object, it seems like a foolish choice not to provide a complete piece.

Anyway, I look forward to receiving my next title. And perhaps some enterprising person will produce a set of proper jackets, to truly finish a lovely set of books!

1976 Oz

2011-05-29T07:32:00.012-05:00

While digging around in the basement recently, I ran across my Bicentennial scrapbook. As a teenager outside Philadelphia in 1976, I was fascinated by the 200th birthday celebration - although I quickly grew more fascinated by the earlier Centennial and Sesquicentennial celebrations. These had included World Fairs held in Philadelphia, rather than random events around the region - but there were still a lot of things to see and do that summer.

At any rate, aside from the various newspaper accounts of celebration events, there were two particular clippings I included in the book. The first is the obituary for Ruth Plumly Thompson, from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Thompson died on April 6th, 1976. I had only recently re-discovered the Oz books at that point, and had never read a Thompson title - at that time, her books simply were not available. I had already started rummaging through used book stores in the area, but had had little success in finding much Oz related material. I still remember my surprise at learning that she had lived in the region!

The other clipping is from an answer column that ran in the paper. This one is interesting as it's from a woman whose mother owned a house in Chittenango, NY, where she believed the author of The Wizard of Oz had once lived. The paper agreed that the house sounded like Roselawn, L. Frank Baum's childhood home, and suggested contacting Oz Club member Ray Powell for more information. This coming weekend is the 33rd annual Oz-Stravaganza! celebration in Chittenango - an event that started in 1978, a couple years after this column was printed!

Ozzy Portraits

2011-05-21T07:44:00.011-05:00

About a year and a half ago, I blogged about starting another Ozzy project - namely, small 12" x 12" paintings of John R. Neill illustrations of Oz characters. It's been a while since I've shown any of these, and as it's been an ongoing project, I thought I'd share a few more.

Today I'm showing some famous females of Oz. I think it's pretty easy to identify Glinda, Ozma, Dorothy and Scraps. These are a lot of fun to do, and I've enjoyed playing with various colors and styles. The images themselves are taken directly from Neill illustrations, and I tend to think of them as coloring book paintings.

I have more that I'll be showing in upcoming posts. As these are small canvases, they don't take up a lot of space - but I am starting to develop quite a pile! They can be fun to arrange in various combinations - a sort of Ozzy Warhol effect!

Happy Birthday, Mr. Baum

2011-05-15T14:33:00.000-05:00

Don't forget - in honor of L. Frank Baum's birthday today, take a photo of yourself and something Ozzy in your life and email it to: IWOCEvent @aol.com. Do it today!

Scarecrow Ears

2011-05-06T07:46:00.007-05:00

In Michael Hearn and Douglas Greene's 1976 biography of W.W. Denslow, there's an interesting passage quoting the artist on how he came up with the images for the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman. This was taken from a 1904 article in the Denver Republican newspaper -

"I made twenty-five sketches of those two monkeys before I was satisfied with them. You may well believe that there was a great deal of evolution before I got that golf ball in the Scarecrow's ear or the funnel on the Tin Man's head. I experimented and tried out all sorts of straw waist-coats and sheet-iron cravats before I was satisfied."

What's interesting here is that Denslow seems to be confusing his illustrations for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and some stage business worked into the theatrical version of The Wizard of Oz. I never understood the reference to the "golf ball in the Scarecrow's ear" until I learned more about the stage play. In Denslow's drawings of the character, I never noticed anything that looked like a golf ball!

But, the stage show is a different story. During the opening Kansas prologue, before the cyclone arrives, a golfer wanders onstage looking for his ball. He flirts with one of the farm girls, the cyclone hits, and he's not thought of again. In the detail on the left, the golf club can be seen at the actor's feet as he reacts to the arrival of the twister.

Then later in Oz, when the Scarecrow comes to life, one of the first things he does is remove a golf ball from his ear - the discovery of the missing golf ball! In the detail on the right from the production, the ball can be clearly seen, and in his autobiography Fred Stone even mentions strapping a golf ball to his ear for the part. Incidentally, it's also humorous to note, in the photo below, that the face of the actor playing Imogene the cow (Fred's brother, Edwin Stone) is clearly visible beneath the bow on the cow's neck! These stage photos are from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

So, that's one of my little Ozian mysteries cleared up - and another proof that memories are not always reliable - even the memories of those directly involved in the creation of a legend!

Baum Birthday Bash!

2011-05-01T16:10:00.004-05:00

In honor of L. Frank Baum's birthday on May 15th, Oz Club member Jane Albright is asking Oz fans/collectors/enthusiasts to take a photo of themselves that day showing how they enjoy Oz - then send it to IWOCEvent@aol.com. These photos will be used in a musical slideshow at the Oz Convention this summer in Banner Elk, NC (info here). Jane is looking for as much variety as possible, showing Ozzy crafts, gardens, clothing, vehicles, etc....so be creative! Here's one for me - it's pretty straightforward and a little early, but might as well get the ball rolling. Remember, the idea is to take the photo on the day (May 15). It's a fun idea!

The Merchant Prince

2011-04-19T07:36:00.038-05:00

This is a slightly different W. W. Denslow cover, created for a Rand McNally printing of The Merchant Prince of Cornville. This is stated to be a fourth edition of the book, and has an introduction dated 1899 - so it's a little past the general time frame of 1896 to 1898 when Denslow was regularly producing covers for the company. I find this cover interesting, because it isn't what I generally think of for a Denslow piece. It has a paper label, rather than a stamped image, and in fact, I suspect it may be something the publishers put together without Denslow's input.

The first Rand McNally printing of this book from 1896 was very plain, with only the title on the front cover. This is a play, rather than a novel, and is said to have been plagiarized by Edmond Rostand in 1897 for his well-known drama Cyrano de Bergerac. At any rate, Samuel Gross sued Rostand over his play, and won the case.

I know this is a Denslow piece because the artist created a color poster for this book, featuring the same lettering and image seen on the paper label - the photo on the right is from the New York Public Library digital gallery. The poster is clearly signed with the Denslow seahorse, something which is lacking from the book cover. My thought is that the publishers simply pulled elements from this poster for the cover seen on the edition of the book shown above, which would explain the difference from so many of Denslow's other covers.

The Daniels Collecton

2011-04-15T07:44:00.005-05:00

This past week, Sotheby's auctioned a portion of the illustration collection of Kendra and Allan Daniels. It happened that I was in New York City, and was able to take advantage of the auction preview and the chance to view the 193 lots that were going on the block. It was an excellent opportunity to see some fine illustration art! Several years ago I visited the Daniels' home and viewed their entire collection, which was an amazing visit - and over the years, I've bought several John R. Neill drawings from Kendra.

The one Neill drawing being auctioned (shown above) was an illustration used as a color plate in Tik-Tok of Oz, showing the arrival of Betsy Bobbin and Hank the Mule in Oz. This particular piece was watercolored after it was used for publication, matching the appearance of the printed color plate. This piece ended up selling for $13,750.00 - needless to say, it's not in my collection! But what a fun drawing to have!

I know of a couple other examples of Tik-Tok color plate drawings that were watercolored in a similar fashion. The example shown on the left (which seems to be unfinished in terms of color, or possibly rather faded) was sold by Heritage Auctions a couple years ago, and another one remains in the Daniels' collection. These pieces are interesting and unusual - for most of the Oz books, the color plates were simply black and white drawings which then had color added by the printer. Neill created suites of finished watercolor illustrations for only two books - Dorothy and the Wizard, and Emerald City. One theory about these Tik-Tok pieces is that the original drawings were colored to be used for display purposes - it's unclear as to who actually did the coloring, whether Neill or someone else at the publisher's.

The items being sold were only a portion of the Daniels' collection. Kendra has two other wonderful Neill pieces - the first is a full page drawing from The Road to Oz, featuring the Scoodlers surrounding Dorothy and friends with the hopes of turning them into soup. The second piece is another Tik-Tok color plate drawing, this one showing Betsy sleeping while Erma, the Queen of Light, and Polychrome watch over her. This is a stunning piece, and has also been very nicely watercolored.

There were a few W. W. Denslow drawings from The Pearl and the Pumpkin - one full page plate and several text drawings, as well as a wide variety of pieces from many of the classic illustrators. The amazing thing about this auction is that these are the pieces that were let go - there are even better ones remaining in the collection!

Denslow Meets Tiffany

2011-04-03T08:45:00.001-05:00

As I've mentioned in the past, my partner and I have a stained glass studio (centurystudios.com). We specialize in creating reproductions of lamps originally created by Tiffany Studios, as well as creating windows and various suncatchers.

One of the more popular Tiffany designs is a poppy pattern, which has always made me think of W. W. Denslow's poppy field from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I've always thought it would be interesting to add a little bit extra to this design, doing a little bit of reworking to the pattern, to turn it into an Oz lamp!

So, at some point this year I probably will. I've been playing with a couple possibilities for character placement. The idea is to keep everyone on the same side of the lamp - generally only one side of a lamp is seen at a time, so this way the shade can serve double duty - either as a Tiffany poppy, or as an Ozian poppy field!

Recycling in Oz

2011-03-17T07:47:00.014-05:00

John R. Neill provided thousands of illustrations for the Oz books, so it's not too surprising if some of his images can be traced to other inspirations. Two very good examples of this were shown in the Autumn 1981 Baum Bugle, and are pictured on the left.

These two drawings were reworked for use in 1918's The Tin Woodman of Oz. Both of the original illustrations were created for a magazine article on child suicide, but with a bit of work, Neill has changed them into Oz characters. The young girl has been transformed into Princess Ozma, and the schoolboy has become Woot the Wanderer. It clearly involved quite a bit more effort to pull off the Woot transformation!

Here's another example that was recently pointed out to me by Michael Hearn. In this case we have a color plate of the Wizard's arrival at Glinda's palace, from 1920's Glinda of Oz, compared with a drawing for a 1919 article on spiritualism, showing a levitating figure. Unfortunately the quality of the image I have for the levitating man is very poor - but the similarities are quite obvious! If this is a case of reworking an existing drawing, I can't help thinking it might have been as easy to start out fresh!

David Montgomery

2011-03-06T07:20:00.108-06:00

Fred Stone and David Montgomery became stars with the success of their roles as the Scarecrow and Tin Man in the 1903 Broadway hit, The Wizard of Oz. Stone lived a long life (1873-1959), raised a family and went on to appear in a number of stage productions, in some cases together with his daughters Dorothy and Paula, as well as films. On the other hand, Montgomery died rather suddenly in 1917 at the age of 47.

At the time, the duo was starring and touring in Chin Chin, a musical comedy loosely based on the story of Aladdin, but Montgomery's death ended the run of the show. Stone declared he would never take another partner but only work solo from then on - although there were rumors that he considered teaming with Frank Moore, who had been the star of another Oz production, The Tik-Tok Man of Oz. In this show Moore played the Shaggy Man - a variation on Fred Stone's Scarecrow! However, Stone was true to his word and did not take on another partner.

Montgomery joined a medicine show at age 16, and appeared in minstrel shows before joining with Stone in 1894. Stone was described as tall and gangly, whereas Montgomery was shorter and seemed to be known as "the little fellow" - so they would have made an amusing visual pair. Stone and his wife managed to get to the hospital before Montgomery's death - Chin Chin was playing in Montreal at the time, and Stone left the evening performance during the second act to get to Chicago, where Montgomery had been hospitalized.

Montgomery never married. Many articles were written at the time of his death, including a very sentimental one about the effect it would have on little Dorothy Stone, Fred Stone's daughter, who would miss her Uncle Craig - apparently Montgomery preferred using his middle name among friends and family. He was preceded in death by his father and an actor brother known as "Scamp", and also had a married sister. One article refers to the "other world in which he moved, that of the racetrack", and Stone mentions Montgomery's love of the ponies in his autobiography - summer vacations of trips to England and the continent were a regular occurrence, before returning to the theater for the fall season. Here's a very brief (all of 5 seconds) film clip of Montgomery & Stone:

I've been unable to find any mention of what he died of - only that he was in hospital for about a month. In an obituary of Montgomery in the New York Tribune, the writer specifically remembers the Tin Man as "the armor plated, comically dolorous figure in search of a heart. He found the object of his quest - it was large and red and made of plush, and the Wizard used a can opener to insert it."

An Exciting Find

2011-03-03T07:05:00.044-06:00

One of the thrills of collecting is running across something you've never seen or heard of before! Here's a piece I've just gotten hold of, and am very excited about.

This is a watercolor of David Montgomery as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. It was painted in 1902 by Ike Morgan, and signed by Montgomery with the dates 1902 - 1903, early in the run of the production. The pose is very close to that used on the well-known poster for the show, although it has a number of interesting minor differences, particularly in terms of angles. I've never seen this image before, or run across any other pieces by Morgan related to the show. It's possible that this may have been used for a newspaper or magazine feature, and I think there's a good chance that there was a companion painting of Fred Stone as the Scarecrow - I wonder if that might ever turn up!

Both L. Frank Baum and W. W. Denslow knew Ike Morgan - he shared studio space at one time with Denslow and illustrated for Baum, contributing some drawings for American Fairy Tales and illustrating The Wogglebug Book (illustration to the right). He also played a role in bringing about the stage version of The Wizard of Oz, by introducing Baum to Paul Tietjans.

According to the Greene/Hearn biography of Denslow, Ike Morgan roomed with Tietjens, who became the composer for The Wizard of Oz. Baum and Tietjans started working on several stage projects, but in June of 1901, Denslow hosted Morgan's wedding reception - Tietjans performed some of his music and Denslow asked the composer to convince Baum to work with him on a stage version of the Oz story. As Baum and Denslow held a joint copyright on the book, both men had to agree in order for the show to be produced - not an easy situation as there was a good deal of friction between the two.

Consequently, Morgan seems to have been in the background of the evolution of the show, and it isn't too surprising that he should have taken an ongoing interest in the production!

An Oz Dinner

2011-02-26T07:16:00.002-06:00

Here are a fun pair of photos I recently found online, at the Museum of the City of New York website. These are from a dinner given by Anna Fitzhugh, in honor of Montgomery and Stone, in 1904 at the Hotel Ansonia in New York.

Fitzhugh was a member of the chorus in The Wizard of Oz, and played a variety of small roles in the show - I posted several pictures of her here in this earlier posting. She left the company in 1904, so perhaps this dinner was given at the time of her exit from the show? The life size centerpiece of the Scarecrow and Tin Man is quite impressive!

Musical Selections

2011-02-23T07:11:00.030-06:00

Occasionally sets of orchestra parts turn up for musical Selections from the 1903 Wizard of Oz. These were available for small or large orchestras, and performances of the music were probably common fare at public concerts of the time. The set on the left is for a small orchestra, and features parts for piano, 1st violin, 2nd violin, cello, bass, flute, 1st clarinet, 1st cornet, 2nd cornet, and drums/bells/triangle etc. The music runs through the various themes of the major songs from the show.

Hungry Tiger Press has released two CDs containing a great deal of original music from the stage Wizard, as well as other early Oz theater. The first compilation, called Before the Rainbow, presents new recordings of the vintage music, assembled by the late James Patrick Doyle. The other CD is a 2 disc set, featuring actual vintage recordings collected from old records, piano rolls, and music box discs. This set features a number of the interpolated songs which were not written specifically for the show, but were dropped into the score. Unfortunately, very few vocal recordings of the more "show-specific" songs, with L. Frank Baum's lyrics, were ever made. But there are recordings of the Selections featured above, both by orchestra and piano roll!

Below is a video clip of a performance of The Traveler and the Pie, a song written by Baum & Tietjans for the Scarecrow and chorus. It's presented here in last summer's re-creation of the 1903 Wizard by the Canton Comic Opera Company:

I'm sure this music would have pleased the listeners of Victor Columbia Edison - the living gramophone in The Patchwork Girl of Oz!

Army and Navy Alphabets

2011-02-18T07:37:00.064-06:00

L. Frank Baum published The Army Alphabet and The Navy Alphabet in 1900, the same year as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. These two books bear no resemblance to the Wizard, but might almost be seen as additions to Father Goose, His Book, as they contain the same sort of doggerel rhymes. I've had an Army Alphabet for some time, but I only recently obtained a Navy...

I've never felt as much interest in these titles, since they aren't actual stories, and let's face it - some of Baum's rhymes make you wince! But the pair of books do have a lovely series of illustrations by Harry Kennedy, reminiscent in some ways of Maxfield Parrish's black & white work.

The Army illustrations are bold and a bit spare, generally set against a white background, which focuses the eye on figures. A nice element in the Army drawings is the inclusion of a small boy who appears in every illustration - a clever way to draw the reader into the book.

On the other hand, the Navy illustrations include more backgrounds and the verses tend to be longer, squeezed into a separate box at the top of the page. This division of the space makes the illustrations feel smaller, and perhaps a bit cramped. The boy is missing as well - he does pop up once or twice in the Navy drawings, but the continuity is gone - a shame as it was a nice touch!

I'm not familiar with Kennedy's work aside from these two books. *After writing that, I took a look online and found that I do have another example - Kennedy illustrated The Airship Boys in the Great War, which was published by Reilly & Britton in 1915. Unfortunately, the 4 plates he provided for this title are very generic half-tone examples and really have none of the charm of the earlier alphabets. I'll have to keep an eye out for other examples of his work!

Dick Martin's Wizard

2011-02-13T10:03:00.014-06:00

Previously I showed three of the 1961 Oz adaptations illustrated by Dick Martin. Since then, I've come up with a copy of the first title, The Wizard of Oz. This seems to be the scarcest of the series, and prices can vary wildly. So much of collecting seems to be waiting for the right copy at the right price at the right time!

I've never been a great fan of Martin's work, but he provides colorful and energetic illustrations for the story. It's humorous to note how his Dorothy seems to have fallen asleep in the poppies more elegantly than Denslow's version - but Denslow does conjure up a child who's dropped in her tracks!

I particularly like the rear cover illustration showing the Scarecrow sitting and reading a first edition of the Wonderful Wizard, next to a stack of the new adaptations. The verbiage explains how these adaptations prepare a child for the full length versions of the books - but I think the Scarecrow has the right idea. Skip the adaptations and launch into the real book!

A Valuable Life

2011-02-06T07:46:00.003-06:00

1897's A Valuable Life by Adeline Sergeant is one of W. W. Denslow's more pictorial efforts for Rand McNally. The front cover shows a woman gazing from a window, but when the book is viewed in its entirety, she seems to be watching a ship burning at sea, with a lifeboat of survivors in the foreground.

There is a copy of this book with an alternative front cover design, a bouquet of lilies, using the same spine and rear cover. I don't know if both covers were put into general publication or not - this is the only copy I've run across!

Grace Drayton

2011-01-31T07:20:00.004-06:00

Here's an original piece of art by Grace Drayton, also known as Grace Weider- seim, the creator of the Campbell Soup kids. This particular piece made me wonder, what if Grace had illustrated Oz? After all, this lion wouldn't look too out of place!

Grace Gebbe was born in 1877, and married her first husband in 1900, becoming Grace Weiderseim. In 1911 she divorced and married again, becoming Grace Drayton. She divorced a second time, in 1923, and died in 1936. She created the Campbell Soup kids, and the Dolly Dingle paper doll series, as well as a number of comics and other illustration work.

Grace was a well established artist. Among her early comic pages was The Turr'ble Tales of Kaptin Kiddo, which was a collaboration with her sister Margaret. I have several pages of this comic from 1910. Each week is a first person narrative by a young child detailing some outrageous adventure, including colorful characters and close shaves. It's written in a childish dialect, which is something I can't stand - but it's a style that seems to have been popular in the day (witness Dorothy's sudden difficulty with language in Ozma of Oz!)

In an episode from Feb. 27th, Grace incorporates some characters from Alice in Wonderland into the strip. While her general style is a bit too cute for my taste, it's fun to imagine her take on some of L. Frank Baum's Oz creations!

Mermaids!

2011-01-28T07:21:00.036-06:00

This year marks the 100th anniversary of The Sea Fairies, L. Frank Baum's attempt to break away from the Land of Oz and start a new series with the characters Trot and Cap'n Bill. The series only lasted through 2 books, with the main characters finally arriving in Oz in Baum's 1915 book, The Scarecrow of Oz.

Mermaids and life under the sea are the main components of this story, giving John R. Neill many opportunities for striking illustrations. He seems to have enjoyed the subject, as he provided another lovely image of a mermaid in his drawing of the whirlpool that captures Trot and Cap'n Bill's boat in The Scarecrow of Oz.

Off-hand, I don't know of any other Baum stories dealing with mermaids, although a mermaid with a parasol makes a brief appearance during an underwater sequence in the 1914 Oz Film Co. production of His Majesty, The Scarecrow of Oz.

This book was not a great success, but it did get reprinted over the years and went through several different cover designs. The original cover, which used a metallic gold background, was dropped quickly and replaced with an adaptation of one of the duotone color plates within the book. When Reilly & Lee reprinted this title in 1920, Neill created a new full color cover, shown on the left.

This was the same time period during which he illustrated Peter and the Princess (1920), and close in time to his illustrating Andersen's Fairy Tales (1923). These three titles seem to be the last book covers Neill produced as full watercolor paintings. He used very similar type styles for the titles of Sea Fairies and Andersen's.

In fact, the cover of Andersen's doesn't really seem to particularly apply to any of the stories within that book, but it does bear a striking resemblance to the final illustration from The Sea Fairies!

John Dough

2011-01-21T07:55:00.014-06:00

Here's a copy of John Dough and the Cherub from 1930 or so - the rear dust jacket flap lists Oz titles to Yellow Knight, the Oz book published that year. This must have been one of the final printings of this title by the Reilly & Lee company.

When Reilly & Britton changed to Reilly & Lee in 1919, several of the L. Frank Baum books underwent changes in appearance. In particular, early titles that originally had stamped covers were changed to paper labels. The Patchwork Girl was one exception - although it too was changed in the 1930's. In some cases, this required a bit of re-thinking on the publisher's part.

For John Dough, the original cover design (shown above right) was used, but it was changed to a full color paper label pasted to the front of the book, instead of a 3 color stamping. The design from the spine of the book was used on the spine of the jacket but only printed in black; this raises the problem of John's disappearing bow tie! I would have thought, considering that the cover was now full color, the spine could have been colored as well!

This past Christmas I did get around to making some John Dough gingerbread cookies. Unfortunately, I couldn't lay my hands on any Elixir of Life, the special ingredient...

Denslow Possibilities?

2011-01-16T07:20:00.015-06:00

Here's another stock cover used by the publishers Donohue & Henneberry for a variety of titles. This cover intrigues me, as it it looks like it could be a W. W. Denslow design - but there's no definite indication. The design uses several common elements seen on Denslow covers - in particular, the band of color across the top and the repetition of a design element, laurel wreaths in this case. This cover was also produced in at least one other color combination. The image isn't signed, and there are aspects that don't look like Denslow to me - but it's fun to speculate and theorize!

This cover was used by Laird & Lee for a set of works by Opie Read. Here again, there are elements that make me think of Denslow, but there's nothing to firmly indicate that this is his work - and it does look a lot like many other stock book covers from the time. Denslow did do work for Laird & Lee, and this particular title has a halftone frontispiece by him - apparently earlier printings contained 4 plates.

Part of the fun of collecting is keeping an eye out for possibilities - these may both be wrong, but they are intriguing!

Generic Denslow

2011-01-12T07:51:00.015-06:00

Happy New Year! After a slow start, I'm finally getting around to a new blog posting!

I first saw one of these generic bindings by W. W. Denslow on the Hungry Tiger Talk blog, and of course I started looking for examples. Over the New Year's weekend, I went on an antiquing expedition, and managed to hit the jackpot, finding several copies from several different dealers!

This binding was designed for the Donohue & Henneberry publishing company. The name changed to Donohue Brothers, and finally was shortened to Donohue, the same company that produced cheaper editions of a number of the early L. Frank Baum books. Examples of all three names can be seen on the bindings pictured.

Quite a variety of titles were issued in this cover, in various colors - I have blue, green, brown and grey - and sometimes the same title is seen in different colors. The copies I have are all stamped in red and either black or dark green. It's a fairly elaborate design, compared to some of Denslow's other cover work - I just wish the publisher had stamped the book titles on the front cover, within the box that seems designed to hold a title!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T07:58:00.006-06:00

Merry Christmas!
.......from the gang!

Tik-Tok

2010-12-18T07:27:00.020-06:00

Having done two fabric figures and two wooden figures, I decided it's time to try metal! Actually, Tik-Tok has fallen together more easily than I expected although I'll admit to cheating - he's brass, not copper. But with a little patina work, he's pretty convincing...

He's mostly made from a variety of lamp parts, along with some additional material. He has his winding key, and three winding spots - one under each arm and the middle of the back. Unfortunately, he doesn't actually wind up... Oh well - we'll have to call in Smith and Tinker for that!

Dorothy Doll?

2010-12-14T07:26:00.033-06:00

The other day, I happened to think of a photo I'd seen in the digital gallery of the New York Public Library website. This image shows Anna Laughlin, who played Dorothy in the original 1903 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz, seated and holding a doll version of herself.

I can't help wondering whether these dolls were ever made available to the public? It would seem to be a likely souvenir to sell in the theater lobby wherever the show was playing. I've never heard of any, but wouldn't that be something fun to run across!

Knave of Hearts

2010-12-11T08:46:00.007-06:00

While doing some Christmas shopping, I ran across a lovely new facsimile edition of The Knave of Hearts, by Louise Saunders, with the beautiful illustrations by Maxfield Parrish. This is published by Calla Books, and they've done a very nice job of it - the book is a large hardcover, the same scale as the original 1925 edition, and printed on heavyweight paper. The front cover has a color pastedown, like the original, and the overall effect is very impressive!

The printing quality of the illustrations is not quite as high as the first edition, as they haven't been reproduced from the original paintings, but they are all there in full color. Interestingly, a couple seem to have been reproduced from House of Art prints, rather than book illustrations - these are some of Parrish's best known book illustrations, and several were popular as art prints in their own right.

Maxfield Parrish illustrated L. Frank Baum's first published book for children, Mother Goose in Prose. It might have been interesting had he continued on and illustrated the Oz series - the books would have had quite a different look, I think! Now if someone would publish a full size facsimile of Mother Goose.....

The book is available on Amazon.com, and makes a fine gift for any Parrish lover!

Jack

2010-12-06T07:21:00.000-06:00

I'm afraid my postings have been pretty sparse lately, but it's easy to chalk that up to the busy time of year!

Here's Jack Pumpkin- head and the Saw- horse, complet- ed and ready to join their other Ozzy friends. In keeping with trying to create these characters more or less as described in the Oz books, both have been made from found sticks and branches. Jack is pegged at his joints which does make him a bit awkward - and it was a bit of a trick to dress him! As stated in The Land of Oz, the Scarecrow will bend, but not break, whereas Jack will break, but not bend.

The Sawhorse is shown above in a more natural state, but here he is in saddle regalia - ready to trot through the Emerald City!

Original Broadway Poster

2010-11-18T07:53:00.001-06:00

A poster from the original 1903 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz was auctioned earlier this week at Poster Auctions International in New York, selling for $2800. I had a bid in - unfortunately the final price went quite a bit higher than I was prepared for. But what a fun piece of Oz ephemera for someone to have!

New Friends

2010-11-14T07:10:00.009-06:00

Back in September I posted a little preview for my next pair of Oz figures. They've been moving slowly, but I am finally making progress on Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse. Scraps and the Scarecrow are looking forward to some new companions!

Here's Jack - he hasn't progressed too far yet, but I hope to make some headway in the next week or two. At the moment, I'm just working on pegging him together - I've been using found sticks and branches to work with, which keeps things interesting!

The Sawhorse is much further along. At this point I'm playing with various accessories and trims - in his illustrations, John R. Neill did enjoy throwing everything he could at this poor creature by way of tassels and ribbons, etc. I'll see what I can do!

Flying Girls and Boys

2010-11-05T07:00:00.013-05:00

After the success of the Wright brothers in 1903, Reilly & Britton didn't waste much time jumping on the concept of the flying novel for teens. In The Wizard of Oz, the wizard leaves Oz by hot air balloon, but by 1909 boys, girls, everyone was flying airplanes! Even a 10 year old could do it, as seen in The Flight Brothers from 1912.

L. Frank Baum contributed to the trend with the two Flying Girl titles written under his Edith Van Dyne pseudonym. Other authors wrote the Airship Boys, the Aeroplane Boys, and the Boy Scouts of the Air series. The boys seem to have been more popular than the girls, as Baum's series only extended to 2 books while some of the other series continued to 8 or more titles.

In the 1930's, Reilly & Lee resurrected some of these teen novels using new titles and packaging. I was recently given a copy of A Wild Night on Lost Island (quite a suggestive title), which is a repackaged Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island. The story remains the same, involving a canoe accident and adventures on a sinister island.

On the dustjacket flap several other titles are listed which seem to be similarly renamed books from 20 years earlier. On the Hungry Tiger Talk blog, one of these titles was featured - Jane Pellew in Kentucky, a reissue of The Camp Fire Girls in Old Kentucky. Unfortunately, none of Baum's work in this line was revived!

A Fun Project

2010-11-01T20:21:00.004-05:00

On my last entry I received a comment from a reader directing me to a project she and her son had completed - a version of The Wizard of Oz featuring Riley and Company, created in rubber stamping and scrapbook techniques.
It's impressive - you can take a look here - And the stamps can be found here!

When Ozzy Houses Go Bad.....

2010-10-31T17:09:00.009-05:00

Happy Halloween!

Denslow and Roycroft

2010-10-15T07:41:00.000-05:00

An interesting item was auctioned at Swann Galleries in New York this past week - a copy of The Deserted Village, by Oliver Goldsmith, which was published by the Roycroft Press in 1898. This particular copy has sketches by W. W. Denslow sprinkled throughout the book, on the page borders.

Roycroft issued various titles with hand illumination as well as extra illustrations, but it's great fun - and quite a rarity - to see one done by Denslow. This was produced in the first year he traveled to East Aurora to work with the Roycrofters.

Unfortunately I didn't win this book at the auction, but I think it's a fascinating Denslow piece!

1905 Theater

2010-10-04T07:34:00.019-05:00

Here are two pieces of sheet music I picked up in a mixed lot recently - Moon Song from The Gingerbread Man, and A String of Pearls from The Pearl and the Pumpkin. Both are from 1905 Broadway shows with slight connections to L. Frank Baum and Oz.

The most obvious connection is the success of The Wizard of Oz on Broadway in 1903. This inspired a plethora of fairyland extravaganzas, some successful, others not. On the Gingerbread Man sheet music, the show is labeled a "Fanciful Fairyesque" - what a great description!

The Gin- gerbread Man is interesting because the main character is named John Dough. In 1906, Baum would publish John Dough and the Cherub which has no connection to this show aside from the similarity of the title character, a living gingerbread man. The composer for the show was A. Baldwin Sloane, who also wrote some songs that were used in the stage production of The Wizard of Oz. Perhaps he and Baum discussed the idea of a living gingerbread man?

The Pearl and the Pumpkin was co-written by W. W. Denslow, the illustrator of The Wizard of Oz. This show also started as a children's book which was transferred to the stage. While it didn't achieve the success of Oz, it did manage a short run. Yet another John Dough - this time spelled Doe - turns up, this time a Baker/Pie Man! It's a pity that Denslow didn't design the sheet music cover used for selections from this show.

Hungry Tiger Press features some musical selections from these shows in their Tiger Tunes, at the Hungry Tiger website.

Halloween is Coming

2010-09-28T18:43:00.000-05:00

Ok...I know this isn't Oz related, but I had to share it. While walking our dogs this evening, Irwin & I came across this totally unique lawn decoration about a block from our house. It made us both laugh out loud and we wanted to get a photo before something happened to it - it definitely ranks as one of the most original pieces of yard art I've seen!

A New Post!

2010-09-27T07:42:00.001-05:00

It's been a hectic couple weeks here, so I'm afraid I've been neglecting my postings!

Here's a pic of the start of another Oz project - some companions for my Scarecrow and Scraps figures. I have a little ways to go, but they'll get done eventually...

Cloud Fairies and Mist Maidens

2010-09-12T07:52:00.002-05:00

One of the fun things about the Oz series are the many unusual characters that turn up and make short appearances, often never to be seen again. One of my favorites occurs in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, where there is a brief passage concerning the cloud fairies. I've always thought these were a lovely creation by L. Frank Baum - Dorothy, Zeb, and the Wizard come across these delicate creatures, as they are climbing back to the surface of the earth after falling through an earthquake crack. The segment is very short, but John R. Neill devoted one of the book's 16 color plates to the subject.

We meet very similar beings in Glinda of Oz, this time the mist maidens. Ozma calls upon them to help herself and Dorothy cross a deep misty valley. Here again, the encounter is brief but a color plate was designed to picture it.

I've always liked these slight references to creatures that play no major part in the main Oz series. Recently while doing some research for work, I ran across a couple interesting paintings which brought these to mind. One is by Herbert Draper from 1912 called The Mountain Mists, (shown below on the right), the other by Fabio Cipolla called The Maidens in the Mist, (shown at the bottom).

I can't help being struck by the similarities of the paintings and the visual conceptions of John R. Neill. Of course, Neill's cloud fairies were drawn 4 years before Draper's Mountain Mists. I haven't found a date for the Cipolla painting, but the artist lived from 1854 to 1924. Or maybe 1852 to 1935. It's interesting how uncertain basic facts can be on the internet! I'm curious as to the date of the Cipolla painting - who knows, it may have helped inspire Neill - or even Baum's description of mist rising over a billowing black sea!

Margaret Hamilton

2010-09-04T07:35:00.003-05:00

Many Oz fans have stories of meeting Margaret Hamilton, the actress who played the frightful Wicked Witch of the West in the famous 1939 MGM film. In fact, when one of my sisters was in 5th grade, Miss Hamilton came and spoke to her class....unfortunately, it wasn't MY class!

But I did get to see Margaret Hamilton perform on stage, during the original national tour of A Little Night Music. I was 14 at the time, and convinced my parents to take me into Philadelphia for a performance - I was already turning into a fan of Stephen Sondheim. Miss Hamilton was playing Madame Armfeldt, the role recently revived by Angela Lansbury and currently being played by Elaine Stritch (!). Unfortunately, I don't have a strong memory of her performance - I was too much in awe of the entire production! It's still one of my favorites, and I can't help feeling that the current revival on Broadway is a weak shadow of the original.

Life Begins at 8:40

2010-08-28T07:19:00.002-05:00

I've just picked up a new recording of Life Begins at 8:40, a Broadway revue from 1936. At first this doesn't seem to have any Oz relevance, but it warrants a closer look!

Life Begins at 8:40 was written by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, with some lyric assistance from Ira Gershwin. Of course Arlen and Harburg went on to write the songs for MGM's 1939 The Wizard of Oz. This review from 1936 is intriguing for bringing the songwriting team together with Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr, who both starred in the review, and later in the Oz movie. So, a number of the future Oz elements were combined 3 years earlier!

This also gave the songwriting team some experience in writing for their stars - in particular, Bert Lahr. One of the songs in the revue is Things, which parodies an operatic baritone - on this recording, it's performed by Brad Oscar. It's easy to see this as a precursor to If I Were King of the Forest! Harold Arlen later declared that no one could write better for Lahr than Harburg and himself.

Josef Pierre Nuyttens

2010-08-20T07:33:00.011-05:00

A couple weeks ago I bought this little painting of a cat by Josef Pierre Nuyttens. It really has nothing to do with Oz, but I couldn't resist - it's charming in a silly way. It was offered once on eBay and didn't sell, but it was offered again at a third of the original price and I fell for it.

Nuyttens was a well regarded artist in the early to mid-20th century who had a long career as a painter, illustrator, printmaker, costume designer, and club owner. He produced society portraits and sheet music covers. In 1920, the Belgian royal family commissioned portraits and he was decorated by King Albert I with a Knighthood in the Order of King Leopold II. Nuyttens was born in Belgium in 1877 and moved to America in 1894, settling and working in Chicago.

Nuyttens also illustrated several books for Reilly & Britton, including some titles written by L. Frank Baum. Most of these were published under various pseudonyms, although Phoebe Daring was in Baum's name. Other books include the two Flying Girl titles, and the second edition of Annabel. Non-Baum books include the adult novel Kenny, two titles in the Azalea series, and a dustjacket for the Captain Becky series - with someone else's interior illustrations!

I don't know when this painting is from, as it isn't dated - Nuyttens lived until 1960, and I assume this is from a later period. Apparently he was an incessant smoker, and died in a house fire which also destroyed quite a bit of his original work.

Dodd's Sister

2010-08-13T07:22:00.002-05:00

The Evolution of Dodd's Sister is a companion book to The Evolution of Dodd, both published by Rand McNally in 1897. Just as Dodd discussed proper means of educating boys, Dodd's Sister turns the attention to the upbringing of girls.

W. W. Denslow's cover for Dodd's Sister is clearly designed to accompany his cover for Dodd. The same colors of teal, gray and white are used, as well as the same layout with a band of color at the top and a single child in the lower portion.

These two books were clearly meant to be a pair, but it's fun to see that The Romance of a Child (also from 1897) was designed in very much the same manner. It fits together nicely with these titles to create a trio of covers.

East is East and West is West....Sometimes

2010-08-07T07:29:00.001-05:00

A few posts back, I had a question from a reader asking about Oz maps and why the Munchkins and Winkies switch locations on various maps. This is one of those perennial questions that has no definite answer, but there are a number of theories.

The first map of Oz was created as a glass slide for L. Frank Baum's traveling show The Fairylogue and Radio Plays. On this simple map, seen on the right from The Annotated Wizard of Oz, the Munchkins are in the east and the Winkies are in the west, as described in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

The next map came out in 1914, as the endpapers of Tik-Tok of Oz. On this much more detailed map, the Munchkins are on the left, which is usually the west, and the Winkies are on the right, usually the east. However, the points on the compass rose clearly place the east on the left and the west on the right. This is unlike any standard map, but Oz is a magical land - perhaps that is simply how things work there!

When this map was reprinted in 1920 to hand out with Oz books purchased that year, someone seems to have noticed the unusual compass points and corrected them. The Munchkins are now irrevocably in the west, and the Winkies in the east. Ruth Plumly Thompson regularly referenced the Oz map when writing her stories, so the two countries remained in their incorrect locations.

When new maps were created in the 1960s by Oz Club members James Haff and Dick Martin, the odd placement of Munchkins and Winkies was corrected. The new maps used a standard compass rose, and the entire country was reworked to try and clear up location discrepancies. This is the same basic map currently available from the International Wizard of Oz Club, although it has been updated a few times over the years. But I still like the original map in Tik-Tok with it's unique directions - that's how I think the map should be!

Finished!

2010-07-31T07:29:00.015-05:00

The Oz window is finished and in place. We managed to complete it in the time we had allotted for the project, which is always a good thing!

On the right, I'm foiling the pieces (wrapping with thin copper tape), in preparation for soldering. On the left, Irwin is finishing some soldering on the back of the window. Once the soldering is done, the window is cleaned and a patina is applied to the solder lines to darken them and create less distraction.

The window is now in place in a window seat on the finished attic/third floor of our house, waiting for trim molding to cover the outside edge. The window will primarily be seen at close range, due to the placement within the room. The photo on the right was taken at night with a flash, showing how the window looks when it isn't lit by sunlight.

I think the composition of this piece is interesting, as it places Glinda front and center as the most prominent Oz figure, rather than Ozma, the ruler of the land. I imagine the main reason for this is that the original painting was planned with Glinda as a portrait of Marie Lufkin, who commissioned the piece - but it's fun to think that this was John R. Neill's take on where the power in Oz really lies!

More Progress

2010-07-25T07:13:00.004-05:00

At this point, the Oz window is all cut and fit, painting and firing are finished, and it's ready to start assembling. There's been quite a bit of overtime work in the past two weeks! Here you can see the window laying on a light table - the window is wider than the table, so the entire image isn't lit. The shadow running down the center of the window is a support bar in the table.

On the left, I'm placing the final pieces. Now the edge of each piece needs to be wrapped in thin copper foil, in order to be able to be soldered together into a finished panel. This step is going to be delayed for a couple days, as a window emergency has popped up that we need to deal with - yes, it does happen! Once we are past that, we'll be able to continue and finish the Oz window.

Moving Along

2010-07-21T07:02:00.000-05:00

The Oz stained glass window has progressed quite a long way at this point. Almost all of the pieces are cut, and the painting and firing are nearly finished.

On the left, you can see pieces of the Tin Woodman in a kiln ready for a firing. A tricky aspect of glass painting is the fact that many glasses will change color or transparency when fired - also, many of the paints can fade in depth of color during the time in the kiln. Consequently, it's always a bit of a leap of faith when painting and firing something!

The finished window will be about 34" x 45". Hopefully, I'll be ready to start assembling before very long!

Window Progress

2010-07-16T07:24:00.002-05:00

The Oz window is starting to take shape. Here you can see the three figures of Glinda, Ozma and Dorothy coming together against the sky. Once the window is completed and dark lead lines are in place, the colors will be more vibrant. I've started painting faces and details on various pieces, but there's still quite a way to go!

Painting on glass is very much like china painting. The paints are actually powdered minerals which get mixed with water and gum arabic, and are fired onto the glass in a kiln. Each layer of color is fired separately, so a painted piece can have quite a few trips through the kiln before it is done. The faces seen here have had two firings, and will still have a couple more. In glass painting, you generally start with the detail work and then add layers of color - which is, in a general way, the opposite of regular painting.

Oz Window

2010-07-10T06:53:00.013-05:00

At long last I've begun working on the Oz stained glass window I've talked about and been planning to do for the past 5 years or so. My partner & I own a stained glass studio, but as this is a personal project it's been postponed a number of times. It's finally underway, and I'll track the progress here over the next couple weeks.

This piece is based on the Oz Parade mural John R. Neill painted for Marie Lufkin. I've mentioned this before in an earlier posting (here). The original painting may or may not still exist, but there are a number of watercolor sketches for the piece, like the one on the left.

At the top of this entry, you can see the cartoon for the window - the basic pattern for cutting the glass. I've given it a general coloring, so I can keep track of what is what, but the final details are not seen in this pattern. There will be a number of painted pieces for faces, hands and other areas in the finished window. I'm also taking some liberties with color selections for a brighter finished piece, but the idea is to keep it as Neill-like as possible!

A Maid of the Frontier

2010-07-04T06:35:00.009-05:00

Happy 4th of July!

Once again I've found a Rand McNally book with a W. W. Denslow cover design. This time it's A Maid of the Frontier, written by Henry Spofford Canfield and published in 1898.

I haven't found much information on Canfield, other than he was born in 1858 (2 years after L. Frank Baum) and seems to have specialized in western fiction. But I have to admit, I can't help thinking of Gentleman Prefer Blondes and the character Henry Spofford III - no connection, but it does jump to the mind!

At about 4.5" by 7", this is the smallest of these books that I've run across. It's a rough copy, but the cover clearly features the Alamo, as well as the lone star of Texas. I believe this may be a later printing of the book, as there is no Denslow seahorse signature on the cover and the top page edges are plain rather than gilt.

In other news, Hungry Tiger Press has redesigned their website and now has a new blog as well. As well as talking about publications currently available, more unusual and rare Oz and related items will be popping up to view. It's always fun to see things like this!

Book Fair Time

2010-06-26T07:46:00.002-05:00

Once again, it's time for the annual local antiquarian book fair. This year there were a few dealers with Oz items - not as many as some years, which was a bit surprising as children's books are usually well represented at this fair. One of the local antique shows is also being held this same weekend, so it's a double whammy for looking for treasures.

I picked up a copy of Toodles of Treasure Town and her Snow Man, another of the many books styled after the Oz series. This particular title has an interesting Oz connection, as it was written by Frederic Chapin, who wrote the music for L. Frank Baum's 1905 failed extravaganza The Woggle-Bug. Chapin (1873 - 1947) had a later career as a screenwriter in Hollywood.

This book, which I haven't read yet, was published in 1908. Glancing through it, there are a profusion of illustrations, including color plates and color chapter titles, and a lovely set of color endpapers all of which give the feeling of an Oz book. The lively drawings were done by Merle Johnson, and are reminiscent of both W. W. Denslow and John R. Neill. I'm curious to see how the actual story holds up!

Ozian Artifacts

2010-06-19T06:56:00.003-05:00

Last week, Profiles in History held a Hollywood auction that included a number of MGM Oz artifacts. I just ran across the catalog online, and enjoyed seeing the fantastic things that were offered. Along with keybook photo stills of sets and signed photos of actors, there were several costume pieces, some seen in the film and some not. A partial Winkie costume, the Munchkin Coroner's hat, and Margaret Hamilton's Wicked Witch hat were among the items. There was also the top of a Winkie spear, and a rehearsal shoe for Judy Garland - basically a ruby slipper without any rubies!

One of my favorite pieces was this pair of emerald gloves, which I've never seen before. Apparently they were used in the deleted Restoration Scene, when Dorothy and friends return to the Emerald City. It's quite the rhinestone work - a good companion to those famous slippers!

Bookmarks

2010-06-12T07:44:00.004-05:00

Over the years I've run across a variety of things used as bookmarks and left in Oz books. There have been assorted dried flowers and four leaf clovers, as well as popsicle sticks and toothpicks. On the right I'm showing a Christmas tag left in a first edition copy of The Tin Woodman of Oz, presented to Dorothy (how appropriate!) from Florence and Helen.

Advertising bookmarks seem to have been popular. This first one is for Stiefel's Medicinal Soaps, which supposedly possessed healing and antiseptic properties. It was left in a copy of Rinkitink in Oz.

The horseshoe design is from Bunte Brothers, and is very vague as far as what was being sold - other than it being "of superior quality and free from adulteration". This was found in a copy of The Road to Oz.

This third example is of a more recent vintage, for Corklyn Papeteries. I don't think I've run across the word "papeteries" before! I've forgotten where this one came from.

Another fun find was the original receipt from the purchase of a copy of The Silver Princess in Oz, dated May 17, 1938. This was left in the book together with flyers for two other books - not Oz stories.

I think my favorite is this drawing of a witch, found in a copy of The Wizard of Oz. Someone was being creative with triangles!

And of course there is the map of Oz which was laid into Oz books sold in 1920. I've run across a few of these, still in their books!

Road Jackets

2010-06-04T07:42:00.012-05:00

Here's a 1920 copy of The Road to Oz in dustjacket. What makes this special for me is the fact that the cover design features a blue background, rather than yellow.

The original Reilly & Britton version of this book only used this lovely cover image on the dustjacket, where it was originally printed with a metallic gold background. The book itself had a stamped cover with a different image. Later R&B printings used this blue background on the jacket.

When the publishers changed to Reilly & Lee, a cover label using the dustjacket art replaced the stamped cover. The earliest R&L copies used a yellow background, but this copy is from the very brief time period (1920) when Reilly & Lee used blue for the background on both the jacket and the cover label, before switching back to yellow for the remaining years.

I've wondered why they would switch back to blue for such a short time period - perhaps they were using up some leftover sheets? I've always preferred the blue to the yellow background.

The Baum family scrapbooks have an example of a printer's proof of this cover with a green background. There is also a blue wash over Dorothy's companions - apparently something that was not pursued in the final product. This rarity was featured on the rear cover of the Autumn 1990 Baum Bugle, and I've always been curious whether the green was a metallic ink, like that which was used in The Emerald City of Oz the following year. If anyone has seen this in person, I'd love to know!

Here's a lineup of the various colors tried and used on The Road to Oz dustjackets. I only have the blue one, and the green one doesn't seem to have been produced to be used, but wouldn't it be fun to have all four colors!

Martin Gardner

2010-05-28T22:21:00.004-05:00

Noted author and scholar Martin Gardner passed away this past week at the age of 95. I first came across him when I was about 10 years old, as the author of The Annotated Alice (which was originally published in 1960 - the year I was born). I later learned of his Oz scholarship, including the fact that he was a founding member of The International Wizard of Oz Club, as well as the author of a variety of articles and essays on Oz topics.

In 1955 he wrote a two-part article on L. Frank Baum, published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which helped bring national attention to Oz at a time when the books were being banned in many libraries across the country. He worked with Russell B. Nye to produce the first book length academic study of Oz, The Wizard of Oz and Who He Was. He even published his own Oz book, Visitors From Oz, in 1998.

Michael Hearn sent me this tribute, which was written for the Scientific American website. I'm posting it here with his permission:

MARTIN GARDNER

(1914 - 2010)

Martin Gardner was my literary godfather. He was the most generous man I have ever known. I owe him everything. When I was only 20, he convinced Clarkson N. Potter to contract my book The Annotated Wizard of Oz as a successor to his own superb and now classic The Annotated Alice. He was always recommending me to editors he knew even up to last year. We often exchanged articles before publication to get the other's thoughts on the subject. Mine benefited inestimably from his input. While he could so adroitly explain the most complex concepts to layman and expert alike, he retained the curiosity and the heart of a child. His integrity was impeccable, his prose lucid and profound.
His influence was vast. Few realize that an article he wrote on L. Frank Baum and the Oz Books in The New York Times Book Review inspired the Broadway musical The Wiz. Who else was quoted by John Fowles in The French Lieutenant's Woman and named by Nabokov a character in Ada or Ardor? Of course it was his sister Judy, not Martin, who told me that. He was the gentlest and most modest of men. A true gentleman. Like everyone who had the honor of knowing him, I feel blessed to have been his friend and he mine. I will miss him terribly.--Michael Patrick Hearn

Recent Purchases

2010-05-22T07:54:00.016-05:00

I've been working for a long time on collecting a set of Reilly & Britton Oz titles in dustjackets, and I'm slowly closing in in my goal. The past few months have been surprisingly fruitful in terms of turning up Oz items, and I've managed to add 2 first state dustjacket copies to my collection - not something that happens every day!

Reilly & Britton dustjackets can be pretty rough when they turn up, but let's face it, these things just don't turn up that often. I've been looking for a jacketed R&B Rinkitink for quite some time, and am very pleased to have found a copy that I could add to the collection. This turned up at a smaller book fair I attended when I was in New York. I found my copy of Tin Woodman on the internet. In both cases, the cover design is repeated on the rear panel, a blurb for the story is on the front flap and ads for other Reilly & Britton books are on the rear flap.

As I've said before, it does pay to get out and look at book dealers and antique shops rather than just limiting yourself to what turns up online. Some of the R&B jackets I have are later states, but I'm hopeful of eventually getting Reilly & Britton jackets on all the Reilly & Britton books - even if they aren't all first states!

Happy Birthday!

2010-05-15T08:07:00.003-05:00

In honor of L. Frank Baum's birthday, here's a photo of the local poppy field. Actually, it's part of a neighbor's yard a couple blocks away - every spring a mass of poppies bloom throughout the yard, and then are cut down for the grass to overtake. They've just started to burst and I thought it made an appropriate birthday greeting. So far there's no record of any neighborhood children or animals falling asleep in the flowers!

Odds & Ends

2010-05-08T07:39:00.002-05:00

Here's a couple items I've recently run across. While in New York, I wandered through Fishs Eddy, a fun shop that carries a variety of dishes and housewares. Among other things, they offer a set of Oz drinking glasses featuring W. W. Denslow images of the famous four. Of course I picked up a set - though I think it's unfortunate that they didn't pick a better image of Dorothy! Some very fun dishes relating to Alice in Wonderland are also available.

Friends occasionally run across Oz-related items and pass them on to me - for example, this set of glittery ruby slipper soap. Perhaps they produce Glinda bubbles? It just shows how embedded the Oz imagery is, particularly the MGM movie.

Polychrome

2010-05-02T07:30:00.005-05:00

This illustration from The Road to Oz (1909), of Polychrome being drawn back up to the rainbow by her father, is one of my favorite John R. Neill drawings. It combines all the elements I like in his work, a sense of the fantastic with beautiful line work and lovely imagery. This is a drawing I'd love to own, as it would be a highlight in any Neill collection!

Polychrome's second appearance is in Sky Island, part of L. Frank Baum's attempt to break away from the Oz series. Her entrance in this book is featured in another lovely Neill drawing, this time a double page spread. It's an elaborate drawing, but not as finely detailed as the earlier piece. Many of the same elements seen in the earlier illustration are here, but the image just doesn't feel as powerful. I think this is because the elements are more decorative, rather than involved in the drama of the moment. Of course, I wouldn't say no to this drawing - once again, it's a lovely example of work by Neill!

There are two more drawings by Neill of Polychrome returning to her rainbow. The first is in Tik-Tok of Oz. This time she is shown being unceremoniously pulled up by the disembodied arms of some of her sisters, rather than carefully gathered. And in Tin Woodman of Oz, she is pictured rising without the aid of anyone - perhaps by this time her father figured she had wandered away so many times, she was on her own for getting back home!

Some Reading

2010-04-25T07:41:00.003-05:00

I've just finished reading a copy of The Tapestry Room, written by the British author Mrs. Molesworth in 1879, and ran across an interesting passage. The child protagonists are traveling down a river in an enchanted land, and they come to a narrow passage that they are unable to get through. After whistling 3 times, an army of frogs appears, each with a length of thread that they tie to the boat and then use to pull the boat through the passage.

I couldn't help comparing this to the rescue of the Cowardly Lion by the field mice in the poppy field, in The Wondeful Wizard of Oz - in fact, with apologies to W. W. Denslow, I conjured up an image showing this as an alternative rescue force!
Back over Christmas, I read A. S. Byatt's most recent novel, called The Children's Book. There was an interesting, if fleeting, reference to The Wizard of Oz in this story. The overall book is a sprawling story, difficult to summarize - but the point I'm referring to occurs in 1904. One of the main characters is a prominent British children's author, who is writing a play for a summer arts camp. In discussions with a German puppeteer, we have the following:

"There is something in my mind. A search for a real house in a magic world. A search for a magic house in a real world. Two worlds, inside each other."
"The Wizard of Oz," said Steyning.
"Humphry says that is an allegory about Bimetallism and the Gold Standard, with its road of gold ingots and its silver shoes."
"It has a little wizard in a huge machine," said Stern. "Which is good for marionettes or other puppets."

In the end, the play does include three adversaries - a strawman, a metal man and a beast.

I found all this interesting because the British edition of The Wizard of Oz wasn't published until 1906 - 2 years after this conversation is supposed to take place. It struck me as odd that the story would apparently be so well known among a handful of characters of various nationalities - and then of course, the theory of political allegory is thrown in for good measure. It felt out of place in the general story, but it does show how Oz can pop up anywhere - even the most unlikely places!

The Road to Oz

2010-04-18T06:11:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned in the past that one of the things I'd love to have is a piece of original John R. Neill artwork from The Road to Oz. This title contains some of Neill's most fanciful drawings - though I do think many of the drawings in Dorothy and the Wizard and Emerald City are equally ornate. Since there were no color plates in The Road to Oz, Neill had an excellent opportunity to show his skill with full page pen & ink illustrations.

Surprisingly, the opportunity arose recently and I now have the original art for the half-title page from this book. It features one of Neill's elfish little men, possibly a Crooked Knook, this one clutching some root vegetables and pointing the way, with the book title beneath the image. It's certainly not the most elaborate of the Road drawings, but I do like that it seems to tell it's own little story!

In the book, the picture was printed with the same border that was used on many of the full page illustrations. There is no border to this drawing, but there is a note in the left bottom corner instructing the printer to add the border. I always enjoy running across production details like that.

New York

2010-04-11T15:00:00.001-05:00

I've just returned from a short trip to NYC for the New York Antiquarian Book Fair. It's always fun to get out to see some shows, and catch up with friends in the area, although there never seems to be enough time to do everything!

One of my stops was the MOMA exhibition of Tim Burton's work - lots of drawings and sketches, as well as movie costumes, props and puppets. Of Oz interest were two sketches relating to the abandoned Lost in Oz project - the images I'm showing are from the MOMA website, and very small. They are a Winged Monkey, and a character named Dick Tater - a many-eyed potato on a throne. John R. Neill created a character named Dick Tater for The Scalawagons of Oz. I don't know if Burton was referring to this specific character, or had come up with his own idea - the concept was certainly the same!

As an Ozzy coincidence, one day for lunch I ended up at a small restaurant called Le Singe Vert - or The Green Monkey - very appropriate as a Tin Woodman of Oz reference!

Happy Easter!

2010-04-04T07:56:00.012-05:00

In honor of Easter, I'm showing a well aged chocolate bunny who has been living in my freezer for nearly 25 years. It was never intended that he should last this long, but sometimes these things happen!

I bought him in Rochester NY, where a sister of mine was living at the time, but for some reason he didn't get eaten that first year. After that, it became a matter of curiosity to see how long he might last, and he has lived up to the challenge beyond any expectations - even surviving a fall off a table, and a mild dog attack. Of course one of these years he might not make it back to the freezer.

The Easter Bunny does make an appearance in the last of the Oz books published by Reilly & Lee, in 1963. In Merry Go Round in Oz, Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion visit the Easter Bunny and his workshop during preparations for an Easter party in the Emerald City. It's a shame John R. Neill didn't get to illustrate this episode, as he had such a way with rabbits! Still, Dick Martin came up with appropriately festive bunnies. Incidentally, there's quite a resemblance between Martin's endpaper design for Merry Go Round, and Neill's design for The Yellow Knight of Oz!

Alaska

2010-03-26T07:45:00.005-05:00

Yet another Rand McNally title with a cover by W. W. Denslow....

This is Alaska, written by A. P. Swineford, who was Governor of the District of Alaska from 1885 to 1889. The book is from 1898, and features a Denslow landscape across the cover and spine, as well as a Russian crest on the rear cover, and what I believe is an American eagle on the front. There is a totem on the spine, and Denslow's seahorse signature is above the author's name on the front cover.

This was written not long after the discovery of gold in the Klondike region, but Swineford states in his introduction that he is purposely avoiding reporting on that subject, as the daily press is a better resource for information!

A fun feature of the book is a large map which is folded and attached to the rear endpaper - this does point out the areas where gold was discovered.

The landscape cover brings to mind Denslow's work on Told in the Rockies and Shifting Sands, or The Waters of Caney Fork, all of which feature extended landscape images. I like the effect of the design running across the entire book, and it gives Denslow more scope for his illustration.

Incidentally, Swineford's wife was named Psyche Flower. That conjures up an image!

More Neill Endpapers

2010-03-19T07:39:00.001-05:00

Here are some more of John R. Neill's early color endpaper designs, used by Reilly & Britton on books by L. Frank Baum. It's a shame that the color endpapers were dropped after Tik-Tok of Oz (1914), as the bright images really do whet your appetite for the story to follow.

For John Dough and the Cherub (1906) and Ozma of Oz (1907), Neill used a similar format in his endpaper designs. Both have the same red and black stripes at top and bottom, containing the action-packed image. In the Ozma drawing, we have a typical case of Neill creating a fun image that has nothing to do with the actual story - I'd be very surprised to find the Nome King intermingling so easily with the other Oz characters! John Dough also features a scene not found in the actual story - although the idea of the Mifkits trying to exact some revenge on Para Bruin, the rubber bear, isn't too far-fetched!

There is a similar stripe again in the design for Sky Island (1912). I'm showing this paired with its companion volume, The Sea Fairies (1911). The Sea Fairies has a very different look than most of the other color endpapers by Neill. Rather than the fine pen & ink style generally seen, this drawing has the rougher appearance of graphite or conte crayon on textured paper - a very different look, but one that Neill used frequently in other artwork.

Another unusual combination is seen in the original endpapers for The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904). Neill's drawing was combined with a photo of Fred Stone and David Montgomery in their respective roles as the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman from the stage production of The Wizard of Oz. As this second Oz title was written with both eyes on the stage possibilities, this seems like an appropriate tie-in. But contemporary readers might be a little confused - it's not Ray Bolger and Jack Haley!

Winter Baum Bugle

2010-03-12T07:01:00.017-06:00

The Winter 2009 Baum Bugle has arrived, highlighting The Road to Oz which was published in 1909, 101 years ago. Among the various articles is one by editor Scott Cummings, pointing out a number of the fun details and enigmas contained within John R. Neill's elaborate illustrations for this book. It inspired me to take another look and show an additional item I've noticed within the illustrations.

Within the chapter heading drawing shown to the right, scanned from a later printing of the book, there are a quite a few portraits of Oz characters and unidentified people/creatures.

We can see Jack Pump- kinhead, the Tin Woodman, Toto, a possible witch, and an un- identified man in the garland on the left side. On the right, the Wizard and the Scarecrow are clear, as well as a couple others who aren't as easily identified. On the two stems of greenery next to the Shaggy Man's portrait are several other faces, cleverly concealed within the berries. This kind of cleverness and attention to detail is what made me a huge fan of Neill's artwork.

Another fun detail, which is mentioned in the article, occurs in the drawing of John Dough's arrival at the Emerald City. In the branches of the tree, we can see an orchestra of birds, apparently all owls, with large and small drums, cello, and two different horns. They are accompanying another owl who is singing from a song sheet. This grouping is very reminiscent of the bunny bands Neill would draw in future projects. An example is shown below, from the collection of the Neill family.

Neill Endpapers

2010-03-05T07:29:00.005-06:00

After posting about some of W. W. Denslow's endpaper designs, it's only fair to look at some of John R. Neill's work. One of the great things about the Oz series is the quantity of illustrations, which spill over to preliminary pages and onto the endpapers of the books. Only one Oz book was published without pictorial endpapers, The Wishing Horse of Oz from 1935.
Neill found a number of ways to incorporate the Oz logo into quite a few of his endpaper designs. The first two shown are the early ornate color endpapers seen in Dorothy and the Wizard and The Road to Oz. Oz titles through Tik-Tok of Oz all included color in the endpapers, as part of the unique features of the books.

Beneath these, we see Grampa in Oz, using the logo as a border element, and The Hungry Tiger of Oz where the Oz logo seems to have been dropped into the picture for no particular reason.

In the four examples above, Neill used simple bold images featuring the logo and characters from the stories - The Lost King of Oz, Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz, The Silver Princess in Oz and Lucky Bucky in Oz.

Below, The Cowardly Lion of Oz uses it subtly, as decoration on the lion's blanket, and The Giant Horse of Oz has one of my favorite designs - a wild game of hoops, featuring the logo in various sizes!

Whose Soul?

2010-02-26T07:18:00.005-06:00

Whose Soul Have I Now is one of the W. W. Denslow/Rand McNally titles that has intrigued me since I first heard of it, simply from its title. As it turns out, it's a fairly obtuse book set in Hawaii and dealing with the suffering and eventual recovery of the wife of a drug-addicted, abusive husband.

However, it does have a very nice cover by Denslow. It's one of his more pictorial efforts, with a wraith-like woman drifting through the trees. It also has an interesting color scheme of lavender, yellow and olive green that is very striking.

More Endpapers

2010-02-19T07:59:00.003-06:00

W. W. Denslow broke into full color endpaper designs with his own books. For Denslow's Mother Goose in 1901, the design is reminiscent of Dot & Tot of Merryland. Both books were published in the same year, but this time, rather than a parading toy band, we have a repeating design of geese.

In Denslow's Night Before Christmas, published the following year, the endpaper design bursts across the page in full color with an array of toys, Santa, and a Christmas tree that only Denslow could have come up with!

Of the three remaining full length children's novels illustrated by Denslow, only The Pearl and the Pumpkin from 1904 has pictorial endpapers. Here the design covers both pages but is printed in a single color, turquoise. The endpapers are also seen in two colors, orange and black, in what are generally thought of as later printings of the book, although priority is uncertain. Billy Bounce and The Jeweled Toad both have plain endpapers, which is too bad - I'd like to see what Denslow could have come up with to welcome readers into these stories.

Denslow Endpapers

2010-02-13T07:15:00.003-06:00

In looking at a few books illustrated by W. W. Denslow, I noticed an interesting progression in endpaper design. The earliest example I have is from 1898, in A Cruise Beneath the Crescent, one of the Rand McNally titles with a Denslow designed cover. He also provided illustrations, including an endpaper drawing that runs along the left side of the front cover. This is a street scene in black & white.

The following year, 1899, Denslow illustrated Father Goose, His Book for L. Frank Baum. Here again he provided a simple endpaper design running along the left side of the cover. This time there is color added, in the tan background and the orange bill of the goose.

In 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published. Here, Denslow extended his endpaper design to cover the entire left side, as opposed to a smaller strip design. But by confining the Cowardly Lion between two trees, he almost gives the same impression of a narrow illustrated strip on the left side. Once again there is a tan background to the image, although no additional color is added.

In 1901, the final Baum/Denslow title was published, Dot & Tot in Merryland. Here, Denslow has extended to fill both endpapers with his design. Three colors are used - black, with a rich brown and orange.

Finally, in 1903 Denslow provided a new endpaper design for The New Wizard of Oz, this time another double page spread in two colors, orange and green. This is a break from the tan and brown tones of his earlier designs, and feels far less regimented in the way the flowers spread across the pages. By this time, he had also started publishing some of his own picture books with more colorful endpaper illustrations.

The first endpaper design is quite detailed and a basically straightforward depiction of an eastern street scene. From there the designs become more playful, appropriately for children's books, with the final design for New Wizard being the most appealing to my mind.

In the Swim

2010-02-05T07:45:00.002-06:00

An archive of Rand McNally titles was recently offered at auction, including many books with W. W. Denslow covers. I didn't win the auction, but I have been able to add several titles to my collection through the kindness of Cindy at Avant Garde Books - the auction winner. Consequently, here's yet another Rand McNally title with a Denslow cover, this time In The Swim by Richard Henry Savage.

In The Swim was published in 1898. This book and my copy of Lost Princess Falka both came from the collection of books mentioned above, and both bear a library label on the spine, presumably from the Rand McNally archive. "EDITORIAL" is rubber stamped inside the front cover on both copies. In comparing notes with Cindy, I am finding that there are more variations on these many covers than I expected, which is surprising considering how difficult the books can be to find.

This title is an example of Denslow's simpler shield covers, which he came up with for several books. In spite of its simplicity, the cover is stamped in both gold and silver. Most Rand McNally titles include gold stamping, but off-hand the only other title I know of to use both metallics is The Waters of Caney Fork.

In my past examples of titles by Savage, I've commented on the excessive use of exclamation marks throughout the books - practically on every sentence. Oddly enough, although this book is also written by Savage, it appears to be perfectly readable without any excessive punctuation. It is later than either of his other titles that I've mentioned - maybe the editors caught on to the problem. I'm looking forward to reading the book to learn the significance of the cow on the spine!