A Savage Denslow

I haven't come up a W. W. Denslow binding in a rather long time. He did quite a bit of work for Rand McNally from 1896 - 1898, but aside from a handful of titles that are a little more common, the books are difficult to find. The majority of his covers are easy to recognize when you see them, due to a distinctive sense of imagery and type style. Certain elements are often repeated, such as coats of arms - in this case, the double headed eagle of the Romanovs of Russia.

This is For Her Life, from 1897, written by Richard Henry Savage. Denslow did covers for several Savage titles, of which I have 4. This particular cover is interesting for being very subtle. The book shows little wear, but the light grey used for the imagery is very pale against the background. This is a wrap around cover, and Denslow's seahorse is present - though difficult to see - in the band of grey water below the boat.

An Ideal Dorothy

This past week has marked the 77th anniversary of the release of the classic MGM film The Wizard of Oz. The film had several sneak previews during August 1939, but the 25th of August was the official release date, and the rest is history!

A wide variety of merchandise was produced at the time, to tie in with the movie. Among the many items was the Judy Garland as Dorothy doll, from the Ideal Novelty & Toy Co. The doll was made of composition and the face was sculpted to portray Judy Garland in her memorable role. This was produced in three sizes, 14", 16", and 18".

I haven't focused on collecting movie items, but I couldn't resist this when it turned up some time ago. This is an example of the 18" size, in lovely condition, although her clothing has been replaced. Ideal also produced a soft doll of Ray Bolger as the Strawman - something else I wouldn't mind having!

Olive and Yellow

A week or so ago, I came across a copy of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz  that I added to my collection. The interesting aspect of this copy was the endpapers, an inventive design that was later adapted into the second cover design for The Emerald City of Oz.

This copy of the book is a first state in the primary binding, but with pale olive endpapers rather than the bright yellow usually seen in this book. The difference is shown in the photo, with the olive version above the standard yellow. I've run across this before, but associated the olive endpapers with copies bearing the secondary spine imprint - interesting to see them used in a primary binding!

A similar color change occurs in Snowbound, one of the poetry books illustrated by John R. Neill and also published by Reilly & Britton. The first state used yellow as a secondary color in the illustrations, while a later state has the same olive green seen here. Just another example of the many variants to be found!

The Witchcraft of Mary-Marie

The Witchcraft of Mary-Marie is one of three short stories that were added to Baum's American Fairy Tales, the 1908 revised edition of American Fairy Tales. In July of 1951, Children's Digest chose to feature a condensed version of this tale as its cover story. This was the ninth issue of the magazine, which started in November of 1950 and which had already featured writing by L. Frank Baum in at least one earlier issue.

The story was illustrated by Art Seiden, but the drawing used on the cover was by Mary Blair. Blair was a well known artist and a famous Disney designer, who drew concept art for a number of films as well as the Small World ride at Disneyland. This cover was drawn during the height of her years at Disney Studios.

The Electrical Household

Here's a bizarre and whimsical drawing by John R. Neill - an assortment of animated appliances that looks like it could have come right from the land of Oz! According to the work label on the back of the drawing, this illustration was drawn for Pictorial Review, in July of 1914.

In typical Neill fashion, the appliances all have faces and, in many cases, additional limbs. In fact, this kitchen looks like it could be in a suburb of Utensia, the village of kitchen implements visited by Dorothy in the 1910 book The Emerald City of Oz.

The row of eight electrical plugs under the window looks a little dodgy to me, but clearly the modern housekeeper has been freed from much of her labor!

Lotta Faust

I recently bought a copy of the January 1905 Theatre magazine. The cover features a lovely color image of Lotta Faust in costume as Tryxie Tryfle, in The Wizard of Oz. Lotta was one of several actresses to play the role during the run of the show, and while she didn't create the part, she was probably the best remembered.

She did score a hit with the song Sammy, and came to public attention in this role. In the photo, she is wearing her second act Emerald City fancy dress, also known as the Sammy dress. The photo is tinted pink for the magazine, but according to Mark Even Swartz, in Oz Before the Rainbow, the dress was actually green which would be in keeping with the Emerald City setting.

This was clearly a popular image of Lotta. I have two different postcard versions of this shot, one printed and the other a photo card. The printed card bears the inscription — "Catherine if this play ever comes to Kingston go to it - Mamie" — a fun testimonial to the popularity of the show.

The magazine doesn't feature any articles on Lotta or the show, she was simply a cover girl for this issue. But there is an ad for the Perforated Music Roll Co. that includes Wizard of Oz Selections.

Publicists seem to have been working hard in 1905 - snippets about various actresses in the show turn up in various magazines. The Standard and Vanity Fair ran this shot with a rather ambivalent blurb concerning the performer -

She went on to appear in other shows before her early death in January 1910. According to newspaper accounts of the time, she was hospitalized for an operation to remove an abscess above her heart. The operation was sucessful, but several days later she succumbed to pneumonia. In May of that year, a memorial benefit was held for her mother and a number of performers of the day made appearances.

Denslow's Picture Books

I just picked up a copy of Denslow's House That Jack Built, one of a series of 18 picture books produced by W. W. Denslow in 1903 - 1904.

 The books were an American take on the English "toy books" that had been produced by well known English illustrators such as Walter Crane, Randolph Caldecott and Kate Greenaway.  Around the same time that Denslow was drawing his picture books, L. Leslie Brooke was producing similar stories in England.

Four of the books first appeared in 1902 as a Sunday color supplement in the New York Herald. These were then rewritten in prose and published, along with Denslow's versions of other fairy tales and nursery rhymes. There were new stories as well, including one featuring the Scarecrow and Tin Man. Denslow owned rights to his illustrations of the famous characters, which allowed him to make use of them as he pleased. This was one of the points that led to the breakup of the L. Frank Baum/Denslow collaborations.

The Scarecrow makes a cameo appearance in House That Jack Built, watching a farmer sowing his corn. The original of this illustration has found a good home in the collection of another Oz fan!

Billy Bounce

Billy Bounce was a comic page created by W. W. Denslow in 1901. The strip was innovative in its use of a continuing story line, as well as Denslow's design and use of the space on the page. In 1902 Denslow retired from the strip, and the characters were picked up by Charles W. Kahles who continued the comic until 1906. The example on the left is from the Sunday Press volume Queer Visitors from the Land of Oz, which includes a number of strips by Denslow.

Denslow returned to the character in 1906, in hopes of creating a story that could be turned into a Broadway extravaganza. The result was a rather uninspired book, written in conjunction with Dudley Bragdon.

The character was popular and inspired a variety of merchandise such as pinbacks, cigars, and a toy bank. The bank seems to have been reproduced recently, with an example I picked up shown below on the left. On the right is an advertising cut for the original bank.

While the character is largely forgotten today, an animated cartoon based on the book was created in the 1960's as a pilot for a projected series. The project never took off, but clearly someone had remembered Billy fondly!

Book Collecting

This copy of The Tin Woodman of Oz was the first Reilly & Britton Oz title I purchased for my collection. I started looking for Oz books in the early 1970's, at a time when the "white cover" editions could still be found, bearing the Reilly & Lee imprint. But at the age of 13 or so I decided I wanted to put together a collection of first editions and find the earlier Reilly & Britton versions of the books. I think it took close on 10 years before I finally began to find collectible copies of the titles - and the hunt hasn't ended! Finding this book was exciting as it was the first early copy of a Baum book that I had run across. Eventually this was replaced by a better copy, then a copy with a dust jacket.

Book collecting was quite different when I started, well before the introduction of internet book searches. It involved visiting any used book store you might run across in hopes of finding a treasure, mailing away for catalogs and book lists, getting to know dealers in hopes that you would be informed if something special turned up. Finding a title was an event, and something that might not happen again. All of that is still true today, but now a quick search with a keyboard will turn up dozens of titles without leaving your chair. Not that the challenge isn't still there - it's just a different kind of experience, and I'm glad I've had the chance to try both!

Oz-Kins

When I was a kid, I sent away for a set of plastic Oz-kins, which I painted and then lost track of over the years - all but the Glinda figure, who survived for quite a while before eventually vanishing. I've kept half an eye out for these figures over time, and have picked up few here and there, until once again I finally have a complete set - along with a few extras!

I remember painting the figures as a kid, using the woefully inadequate brush and paint that was provided with the mail-away set. It was not a success, but the figures were still fun; particularly since they included characters that were from the book series, not just the MGM film.

The figures are an odd mix, because the imagery comes from various sources. The Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Lion are based on W. W. Denslow, while Glinda, Mombi, the Sawhorse and the Soldier are based on John R. Neill. Dorothy, Toto and the Wizard are based on the characters from the Chuck Jones Off to See the Wizard cartoon series, which these toys were promoting. Proportions vary from one to the next, and overall it's a very strange assortment!

Toy Theater Update

Last November I did a post about the toy theater I was starting to make, showing scenes from the 1903 Broadway production of The Wizard of Oz. I'm still working away at it, and have made progress - although there are still several scenes to go! It's a fun project, requiring some ingenuity and a good deal of patience, while trying to figure out the sets of the show from the handful of surviving black & white production photos.

 In my earlier post I showed the Poppy scene, which was my starting point of the project. This takes place towards the end of Act 1, and is followed by The Poppy Field in Winter. This was a transformation, with the poppy scene transitioning through a snowstorm, finally revealing the flowers vanquished by the Snow Queen, the travelers awakened and the end of the first act.

Act 2 takes place in a courtyard of the Emerald City, a bizarre architectural blend of East and West. This is a shot of the scene in its early stages, as I was starting to figure out the various panels. I roughed out the ideas on paper, before painting and cutting the final drops from canvas. The original sets for this show were extremely elaborate and complex, involving a number of drop curtains as well as flats and set pieces. For my purpose I've had to try and distill this into something a bit simpler and manageable in a small size; the backdrops of the toy theater are about 12" by 20", which limits the amount of detail presented. This scene required some freestanding set pieces, constructed of balsa and paper mache. 

Of course each scene also needs its cast of characters in appropriate costumes - the actors in the various scenes are approximately 4" tall.

Act 3 is set in The Borderland, with a color scheme primarily of lavender and white. The use of color changing LED lights provides the ability to enhance various colors in the different scenes. Once again, some freestanding set pieces were required, included a cage of wisteria vines which is used as a prison during the act - paper mache to the rescue!

The story presented on stage veered drastically from that of the original book, including an execution scene with the threat of death facing Dorothy and her companions. Fortunately a speedy resolution is achieved, and a happy ending!

The Emerald City

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

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

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

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

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