Mid-Summer

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

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

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

Book Fair!

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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."