Denslow Drawing

W. W. Denslow is best known for his simple comic illustration style, but he was also an accom- plished artist in other genres. This delicate pencil drawing shows his ability to create a simple landscape. Although there's no connection, the bridge does make me think of the one used in the Kansas scenes of the MGM film, when Dorothy arrives at the caravan of Professor Marvel.

This image is labeled: Miller's Creek / Canada / opposite Oakfield Club / July 28th 1908. The canoe is named the Idyll, and the whole scene is indeed quite idyllic. In the excellent book W.W. Denslow, by Michael Hearn and Douglas Greene, the authors mention that Denslow began doing work for the Niagra Lithograph Co in Buffalo, NY in 1908, and moved to Buffalo in 1909. He clearly made at least one trip across the border at some point.

A Wizard by Any Name

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was only published under that title for about 2 years. When the publisher, The George M. Hill Co., went bankrupt, the title was bought by Bobbs Merrill. They produced a new edition in 1903, this time titled The New Wizard of Oz. This may have been to show that it was indeed a new edition, or it may have been to separate it from the highly successful 1902

Broadway show, which used characters from the book but did not retain much of the story. It could also have something to do with the fact that The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was never quite properly copyrighted - maybe this was a way of fixing that situation. "New" was quickly dropped from the title, and the

story became known as The Wizard of Oz.

Above on the right is a copy of The New Wizard of Oz, not an easy title to come by. On the left is a later printing by the Donohue company in dustjacket, ca 1913.

Minor changes to the titles of Baum books were not uncommon. In some cases, books would be reprinted under new titles, sometimes even with a new psuedonymous name for the author.

Portrait

This is one of my favorite pieces of John R. Neill artwork in my collection. It's a lovely pastel portrait, and I don't know if it was ever published - there are no notes or indications on it. This shows yet another medium Neill worked in - aside from pen & ink, watercolor, ink wash, and graphite. Although it has no obvious Oz connection, I tend to think of it as a portrait of Ozma - it's reminiscent of his images of her in The Emerald City of Oz.

Apparently, Neill did not do any oil paintings - which seems a little odd. He did have a set of oils, which his granddaughter now owns, and he was commissioned by a fan to do a large Oz mural in oils for above a fireplace - but that is the only mention I've ever seen of any work of that sort. Oils aren't something you just dive into without some practice - so I wonder if there ever were any other paintings by him? Many of the major illustrators of his time did do large scale paintings - perhaps he just didn't like that method of working. Still, an oil painting by Neill is something I'd love to run across.

A Little More MGM

As I mentioned before, I don't have many items relating to the MGM film in my collection. I do have a very nice autographed photo of Judy Garland from approximately the right time period, as well as an advertising card for the movie. Judging by the hole at the top, this appears to have been used over a door handle. This card also advertised two other films on the back, In Name Only with Carole Lombard and Cary Grant, and The Angels Wash Their Faces with Ann Sheridan and Ronald Reagan! I also have a fairly moth eaten set of 45's with the score of the film.


I've always been a fan of the movie - a lot of Oz fans seem to have a bit of a love/hate reaction to it. Personally, I think it's a lot of fun, and far better than what might have happened if some of the earlier plans/scripts had been followed. Also, like it or not, the movie is what has kept Oz as well known as it is today.

The Emerald City

In 1910, L. Frank Baum published The Emerald City of Oz. This was intended to be the last Oz book, and Reilly & Britton pulled out all the stops. The spine was stamped in silver, the cover label had both silver and green metallic ink, and there were 16 color plates printed from watercolors by John R. Neill. These plates also had highlights of metallic green ink, making this a very opulent book.

This label was soon replaced by a much simpler one, based on the endpapers of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. I never quite understood this - even if the metallic accents were dropped, the same image could have been used. I suspect that Reilly & Britton wanted to shift to a simpler, more graphic cover in keeping with the books being published at that time. Below I show the original cover in both light and dark blue cloth, as well as the secondary cover.

When I was a kid, I ran across a copy of Emerald City at a friend's house. At that point, I had only read the first two books of the series, and was thrown by the Nome King, a character I had not read of before. I don't think I even finished the book - the characters and story had evolved too far from what I already knew. Once I started filling in the gaps from the other books of the series, that wasn't a problem.

As a collector, The Emerald City was a book I was very anxious to get in first edition. It has all the bells and whistles of an Oz book, and aside from being a fun story, is a great object. At least some of the original watercolor illustrations survive today - I'm not sure how many. Like the Road to Oz illustrations, I consider these to be Holy Grail Oz illustration pieces.

The Nome King

The Nome King is the great Oz villain. He continually re-appears with plans to conquer the Land of Oz, and enslave the Oz people. Of course, he never succeeds although he does manage to get pretty close sometimes.

This character is first introduced in Ozma of Oz, the 3rd book in the series. Here I have two variants of an illustration by Dale Ulrey for the previously mentioned 1950's edition with new illustrations, which was never published.

The first is what I consider the finished drawing, showing the Scarecrow's attack on the Nome King. The second is interesting, as it is a moodier piece done of the same subject, but with an ink wash and more atmosphere, showing more of the setting. The Nome King is a bit different too, looking more like one of Snow White's dwarves. In the upper drawing, he's very much the same Nome King that John R. Neill drew.

Dale Conner Ulrey was a comic artist, who worked as an assistant on the strip Apple Mary. She took over the strip in 1938, when the name was changed to Mary Worth's Family, and drew it until 1942. This strip is still running today as Mary Worth. Her first Oz-related work was illustrating Jaglon and the Tiger Fairies in 1953.

Early Baum

I've already shown Mother Goose in Prose, L. Frank Baum's first published children's book, and Father Goose His Book, Baum's first success. Here's another early title, A New Wonderland. This was the first children's book written by Baum, before Mother Goose in Prose, but it didn't get published until after The Wonderful Wizard. It's more or less a collection of short stories, loosely tied together by taking place in the same magical land. These may well be some of the stories Baum's mother-in-law, Matilda Gage, heard him telling the children, and advised him to write down.

The book was originally named Adventures in Phunniland, but that was changed for publication. In 1903, Bobbs Merrill reprinted this title as The Magical Monarch of Mo. This is another example of the re-packaging Baum titles went through over the years. Oddly enough, each edition of the book has some illustrations that do not appear in the other.

I was surprised to find my copy of A New Wonderland at a local antique shop. It took a moment to register when I saw it, as it was so completely unexpected. I can't say it was a steal, as the seller apparently knew what he had, but I was glad to find a copy - it's a difficult book. I haven't heard of any artwork surviving from this title.

Del Rey Road

The cover for the Del Rey edition of The Road to Oz is once again based on a full page John R. Neill drawing. This is the smallest of the Oz cover paintings by Michael Herring. 

I find it odd that he was very inconsistent in his choice of materials and sizes for these pieces. Most of the Baum covers are painted on a rigid board similar to foamcore. Other pieces are painted on masonite, stretched canvas, canvas board, and stretched linen. The sizes range from this piece at 14.5" x 24.5" to pieces that are 24" x 36". I would have thought it simpler to have one size and one material to work with for the entire series, but that's just me. I suppose, since they were not all being done at one time, he worked with what he had on hand, or in the method he was currently comfortable with. The variety does add another level of interest to the pieces. 

 This is a straightforward adaptation of Neill's drawing without any major changes. On the painting, the Oz banner has been dropped a bit lower than in the drawing. When viewing the painting in person, you can see that the banner was originally painted higher, then painted out and lowered. This was done so that it would not intefere with the Oz in the book title. The jagged rocks have been added to the foreground, and due to the proportions of the painting, the composition is not as tight as that of the drawing.

As with all the paintings in the series, the image was cropped for the printed cover.

Mother Goose in Prose

L Frank Baum's first published children's book was Mother Goose in Prose, in 1897. This was also the first book illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. As the name indicates, it is a collection of nursery rhymes that have been re-written as short stories.

This was the first non-Oz book by Baum that I read. I was given the Bounty reprint edition in 1974. This was during a resurgence of interest in Parrish, and I believe the illustrations were the main reason the book was reprinted. When I eventually bought a first edition, I was amazed at the difference in size. The original printing is quite large, giving plenty of room for the Parrish illustrations. Later reprints all shrink the book down to a more standard size.

Pettijohn's Breakfast Food offered Mother Goose in Prose in parts, if customers mailed in labels. On the right is an ad with this offer. I believe these paperbound sections are quite rare today.

I'm not certain if any original artwork exists from this book - I think it might. I do know that Maxfield Parrish signed 27 sets of proofs of the illustrations, which were sold as portfolios. Only a handful of complete sets survive, although individual prints have been on the market lately.

More Road

I have a copy of The Road to Oz that seems to be unique - at least at present. On the rear cover, the stamped image of Dorothy and Ozma shows the two girls holding hands - in subsequent stampings, the hands were left off. The reason is fairly clear to me, the hands just confuse the image. It's much clearer and more graphic without them.

I'm assuming that this is a sample or test binding for the book. At any rate, it's certainly the earliest state of the binding since the hands would have been removed from the stamping plate for subsequent issues. The interior has all of the first state qualifications, and the spine imprint is slightly different from that used on the standard version. This just goes to show that variations can still be discovered, even after over 50 years of serious collectors!

Artwork does survive from this book, mostly in the form of full page drawings. These were some of John R. Neill's most elaborate Oz illustrations, and any one of them would be a centerpiece for a collection of Oz artwork. Unfortunately, I don't have any - but I haven't given up hope!

As always, if anyone does come across a similar copy of this book, I'd love to hear about it. If another shows up, it could help to indicate what exactly this is - a sample/test binding, or an earlier state of the cover.

More Denslow Covers

Another example of changes to covers W. W. Denslow drew for Rand McNally is The Marbeau Cousins. On the left is the original cover, while on the right is another later version. All that remains are three of the crows, and the lettering of the title and author's name. And those crows look awfully familiar...they're very similar to the frieze of crows under the Scarecrow in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. I think connections like that are always interesting.

The Road to Oz

1909 brought The Road to Oz by L. Frank Baum. Here again, Reilly & Britton were producing an elaborate and attractive book. This time the book had a stamped cover, but the dustjacket had a different image showing Dorothy and friends, printed with a metallic gold background. The pages of the book were printed on various colors of paper. All of this was part of the "distinctive bookmaking features" Reilly & Britton advertised. Below, I show a 1920 printing of the book, after the stamped cover was replaced with a color plate using the dustjacket image. The gold metallic background was replaced with blue, which was later replaced with yellow.

This book introduced several characters who would re-appear in later books - the Shaggy Man, Button Bright, and one of my favorites, Polychrome, the daughter of the rainbow. I was never as fond of the Shaggy Man and Button Bright. Something about the Shaggy Man disturbed me - I think it might have been his beard - and Button Bright was a little too infantile. I grew fonder of both in later books.

I have a small John R. Neill drawing that pictures a tramp who, with a little imagination, could be the Shaggy Man before he got so shaggy! This could be a magazine editorial illustration, ca. 1920 or so. The caption reads: The farmers wife who out of pity gives a good meal to a tramp is acting more wisely than the functionary who compells the tramp to earn his meal by hard labor.

I remember reading an old Baum Bugle article that referred to this as the "most dangerous Oz book", due to the fact that Dorothy arrives in Oz after wandering off the farm with a strange man. Certainly not an example to set for children! Personally, I would think Aunt Em and Uncle Henry would keep a closer eye on her - she had already been swept away in a cyclone, blown off a ship at sea, and fallen down an earthquake. Clearly, she attracted trouble.

A Different Flying Monkey

This piece of artwork was done by John R. Neill around 1918 and was published in Pictorial Review magazine. It's a bizarre image that I call the monkey funeral - but is the monkey really dead, or is this perhaps a scam funeral? His toes certainly seem to be clutching the end of his coffin, and he is wearing quite the outfit. The crashed plane in the background leads me to think that the monkey may have been flying - not quite a Winged Monkey, but maybe a relative! Obviously, I have no idea what this drawing is actually illustrating, but it's a fascinating image.

A label on the back of the board reads: Charge to PR / Order no. 5321 / In work 1/10/18. I've been told it might possibly have been used to illustrate a Mrs. Mahoney story. Once again, if anyone runs across this image in print, I'd love to hear about it!

Del Rey Oz covers

In 1978, the Del Rey company decided to start reprinting the Oz series as trade paperbacks and market them as science fiction. As part of their re-packaging, new covers were created for the books. These covers were painted by Michael Herring in the super-realistic sci-fi style of the time. A couple years ago I managed to acquire a number of these paintings.

The first cover Herring did, to secure the job, was for Ozma of Oz. For this cover he took a Neill drawing from the book, and translated it into a full scale painting. This was the technique he followed for most of the Baum titles. It is interesting to compare the original Neill drawing, and the painting based upon it. The essentials are the same, but Ozma is now a blonde. The Scarecrow and Tin Woodman have more of a resemblance to their MGM counterparts rather than the book characters, and Ozma has been given a greater sense of purpose. She now looks as though she's driving forth to conquer, not simply crossing the desert in her chariot. Also, the magic carpet the characters are using to cross the desert has been given a curve, rather than the severe straight line of the drawing.

Some of the whimsical quality of Neill's original is lost, along with the sun rays bursting as clouds scud across the sky. In the new version, an unobstructed space had to be left for the book title. On the published book cover, the image is cropped - more severely on the right side.

The originals of these cover paintings are very well done, and much larger than the paperback covers for which they were created - Ozma is 22" x 30", and an impressive piece. This is the best series of major Oz paintings that I am aware of extending past the first, and best known, title. Certainly these images are iconic for those reading the Oz series in the 1980's, as this was the most readily available set of the books. I've been unable to find any current information about the artist - there were a few articles in the Baum Bugles of the time period. Any more recent information would be appreciated!

Denslow Book Covers

Before W.W. Denslow teamed up with L. Frank Baum to produce some of the most successful children's books of their time, he was a well regarded poster artist. He also designed a number of book covers for Rand McNally between 1896 and 1898. Many of these covers were like miniature posters themselves, colorful and eyecatching.

Denslow signed his work on these covers with his usual sea horse or hippocampus. I find it interesting that some of the books seem to have gone through several printings, and in a number of cases the seahorse was dropped in later states. A good example of this is Romance of a Child - the first printing, with a grey background is clearly marked with the hippocampus above the author's name. A later printing, in a new color scheme, has dropped the symbol.

These covers were not simple stock images. In the case of this book, Denslow had clearly read the text as all the cover images relate to the story within - the child watching the fire, the religious reference of the cross, the fireplace tiles with motifs of sailing, etc.

Another example is Rosemary and Rue. I have two different versions of this binding (I'm afraid the gold lettering did not scan well on the tan version), and neither has the hippocampus symbol. I know of a third version, similar to the tan example but with a gold, rather than red, heart. This one is not signed either. Just another of those little publishing mysteries!

More Dot and the Wiz

Dorothy and the Wizard was the first vintage Oz book I bought, when I was about 15, and it confused me to no end. I was not familiar with the printing history of the book at that time, and all I knew was the Rand McNally paperback that I owned. This book has a cover which was redrawn by Dick Martin for the 1960's Reilly & Lee versions (shown at right). This version also had a drawing on the rear cover, adapted from one of the original color plates, and Dick Martin adapted several of the watercolor plates into ink drawings for additional illustrations within the book. Confused yet?

The old copy that I bought (at left) had no Dorothy on the cover, the Wizard was painted rather than the ink drawing I knew, and inside the book there seemed to be pictures missing! I didn't know there had originally been color plates. Anyway, none of this stopped me searching for vintage Oz books - this just fueled my interest. I knew there had to be something out there with more artwork, and this intrigued me.

Dorothy and the Wizard

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz was L. Frank Baum's Oz book for 1908. I've always thought that this was a very awkward title, and the story itself has never been a favorite.

The Oz books were always colorful, but here Reilly & Britton were aiming for more lavishness. This was the first book in the series to use metallic inks on the cover and spine, and to reproduce watercolors for the color plates. This was also the first Oz book to have a printed paper cover plate rather than a stamped cover design. Neill's illustration style has become more elaborate, leading up to the next year's book. Once again, I don't know of any artwork surviving from this title.

Below I show 3 copies of the book - on the right is a first state of the book, with the gold metallic cover. On the left is a ca.1912 printing by Reilly & Britton in dust jacket, with the gold dropped from the cover. This book suffered more than most in reprints - first the silver was dropped from the spine, then the gold was dropped from the cover, then the number of color plates was reduced. Eventually, the picture of Dorothy was dropped from the cover to make way for the words "Popular Edition", and even after the words were dropped she never made her way back again. This left a rather unbalanced and unattractive cover.

The third copy I show is from 1938 and was produced by Reilly & Lee for Sears Roebuck, to cash in on the upcoming 1939 film. The cover is a very uninspired adaptation of one of the color plates from the book, which were no longer in use, and the book was cheaply produced on inferior paper.

Neill Art

John R. Neill's illustration skills were used for much more than just the Oz books. As well as drawings for other books, he did a great deal of magazine and newspaper work. I've been fortunate to have the opportunity to purchase pieces from the Neill family that are not Oz related, but show a wide range of the artist's skill.

Neill's illustrations were one of the incentives for me to read the Oz series. The style and apparent ease of his work always impressed me. One of the nicest things about his original artwork is the scale - a drawing that might only have been 4" wide in print can be 10" wide in the original - giving a much better impression of the artist's skill.

Neill injects grace and whimsy into most of his work. Even the following editorial illustration has a touch of humor. This appears to have been published, possibly in Colliers Magazine, in 1920. The caption reads: America's leading product is propaganda. The bottom right of the board (not shown) reads: Fear not the Trumpeter / or / Rendering yeoman service to the / benevolent and neglected God Optimism. The back of board reads: pub Jan 10/20 / Fear not the Trumpeter / by John Neill. I have not managed to find a copy of this piece in print - if anyone does, I'd love to hear about it!

Ozma

Ozma of Oz, from 1907, was the 3rd Oz book by L Frank Baum, and re-introduced Dorothy Gale to the series. Ozma has one of my favorite covers from the Oz series, very bold and colorful. The original dustjacket had a completely different image, similar to a poster for the book. At left is a first edition of the book, and above are a first Canadian edition (the first Oz book published in Canada), a copy from 1913 with a partial dustjacket and a 1923 copy in dustjacket. When Reilly & Britton became Reilly & Lee in 1919, the stamped cover of the book was replaced with a paper label repeating the dustjacket design.

I do not know of any artwork surviving from this title, however I do have several pieces from a 1950's edition that never happened. Reilly and Lee were working on updating the Oz series, and started to issue the books with new illustrations by Dale Ulrey. The Tin Woodman of Oz was the first to get this treatment, followed by the first Reilly & Lee printing of The Wizard of Oz. Some illustrations were drawn by Ulrey for Ozma of Oz, but it was never put into publication. At left is a drawing of Ozma and friends before the Nome King.

The Wogglebug

The Wogglebug Book was published in 1905, during L. Frank Baum's attempt to turn The Marvelous Land of Oz into a musical extravaganza. This book is not generally considered an Oz book as it takes place in the USA, following the Wogglebug on a series of escapades. It is actually a continuation of the 1904/1905 Queer Visitors comic page. My copy which I'm picturing to the left is in so-so condition - this is a large book, with cardboard covers and not designed to last.

Ike Morgan, who was a friend of W. W. Denslow, illustrated The Wogglebug Book. He had previously provided some illustrations for American Fairy Tales by Baum. An original Wogglebug illustration is shown at right, together with the color printed page from the book. I also have a paper overlay that was used to indicate some colors for the printers. This really only gives a very minor indication of what was what - the most colorful things being the poppies, and the stripes on the Wogglebug's turban!