Mary Louise

After finishing the series of Aunt Jane's Nieces books, L. Frank Baum began the Mary Louise series, using his Edith Van Dyne pseudonym. Baum took the title character's name from his favorite sister - there was also a Mary Louise in the book Annabel.

The Mary Louise books have the plainest bindings of any Baum title published by Reilly & Britton. Maybe the publishers felt that Edith Van Dyne was such a popular author, there was no need to spend money on attractive covers!

On the left I'm showing a first edition in dust jacket, a first without the jacket, and a Reilly & Lee edition in jacket from the early 1920's. The original dust jackets use the same image on all the titles, a flock of bluebirds in flight. The series was given the additional title of The Bluebird Books, for no apparent reason that I know of, unless it was to justify the bluebirds on the jacket! As you can see, the later Reilly & Lee editions used a new jacket design - once again the image is the same on all the titles, but the color in the background changes.

After Baum's death, the series was continued using another author - just as the Oz series was continued with Ruth Plumly Thompson.

High Boy

For The Giant Horse of Oz, John R. Neill created page-and -a-half chapter title drawings. The gap in the middle of the drawing was to allow for the binding of the book, as the image appeared over two pages. This drawing is from chapter 13, and also has a blue watercolor wash to indicate areas where half-tone shading would be added. There is a lighter and a darker blue - for lighter and darker grey. It's not clear whether this color was added by Neill or by Reilly & Lee staff , but it's probably the latter.

I don't care much for the half tones - they add depth, but I think they tend to muddy the images, and would rather see the illustrations without the grey haze. This technique was used in a number of the Oz titles during this time period.

The drawing shows Trot, the Scarecrow and Benny (a living stone statue) gazing up through the legs of High Boy, the Giant Horse - a horse with telescopic legs. This is the only Neill drawing I have of the Scarecrow, and he's looking rather apprehensive!

Junior Editions

Several days ago I mentioned some 1939/1940 printings of a few Oz titles, generated by interest in the MGM movie. Here is another set of books that was produced at the same time. Rand McNally published these Junior Editions of six Oz books, as well as reprinting the six stories from the Little Wizard Series in 3 books. The Junior Editions are abridged versions of full size Oz books - the Little Wizard stories were originally written as short stories. All nine books were available in a boxed set, something that doesn't turn up very often!

This edition of The Road to Oz is unique, as this is the only printing to have color plates. The original book was printed on various shades of paper, and the publishers never bothered to add color plates when the paper feature was dropped. For this printing, 12 color plates were created from the original black & white drawings. It would be interesting to see a hybrid of these two printings - the book printed on colored paper, with the 12 color plates tipped in!

The Giant Horse of Oz

The Giant Horse of Oz was Ruth Plumly Thompson's title for 1928, and with this book Reilly & Lee changed the format of Oz dust jackets. Up to this point, the jackets on the Thompson titles consisted of white paper with front and back panels reproducing the cover plate of the book, and a spine panel printed in blue with the book title, an illustration and the publisher's name. The front flap had a blurb for the story and the rear flap had a list of titles, ending with the most recent title. The information on the jacket didn't change, but from this point on through the rest of the series the spine was printed in color, creating a more colorful and attractive wrap around jacket.

This idea had been visited by Reilly & Britton in 1913 with The Patchwork Girl of Oz, and before that with Sky Island. In both of those cases, the elaborate dust jacket image was different from the book cover.

Denslow Atlas

Among the covers designed by W. W. Denslow for Rand McNally is this atlas, The World's Peoples and the Countries They Live In. This is a combination atlas and geography book, with many maps, photos and diagrams of various countries and their inhabitants. The cover is designed in quite a different style from the books I've been showing - it's a much more detailed drawing, rather than a bold graphic image. The size of the atlas allows for this approach, since there is plenty of room for detail and less necessity for simple blocks of color.

I'm afraid this image was somewhat inexpertly pieced together from two scans, as the book is too large for my scanner - but at least you get the idea!

More Christmas

Ruth Plumly Thompson and John R. Neill also provided a Christmas themed book, or at least a Santa themed book - The Curious Cruise of Captain Santa. This is the only title outside the Oz series that these two worked on together and it was published by Reilly & Lee in 1926.

I like the way that this book was printed throughout with red accents in the illustrations - it would have been nice to have full color plates as well, but I suppose that was out of the budget.

Christmas in July

As it's the middle of the summer, I figured it was time to present a few Christmas books. First we have The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), L. Frank Baum's story of the origin of St. Nick. In this book, Baum creates an entire mythology to help flesh out the Santa Claus legend - in some ways, it's similar to what he did in Mother Goose in Prose, starting with a traditional tale and making it his own. This book has been adapted into a couple different animated TV specials.

The illustrations are by Mary Cowles Clark, an artist from Syracuse, N.Y. I don't know if there are any surviving illustrations from this book. There are a few more examples of her work at:
http://www.nha.org/digitalexhibits/artistcolony/marycowlesclark.htm

Denslow's Night Before Christmas (1902) is exactly what the title says - W. W. Denslow's take on the classic Clement C. Moore poem. This was a follow up to Denslow's Mother Goose, and is in the same large picture book format. Denslow did a wonderful job of illustrating the poem, with his usual bold rich colors. The copy I'm showing is a first state, bound in paper covered boards. Later printings had a different, and much sturdier, cover. This book was reprinted in the 1980's - I'm surprised it hasn't been printed more often! I believe much of the artwork survives for this title.

Del Rey Gnome King

I think this painting for The Gnome King of Oz is my favorite of the cover paintings done by Michael Herring for the Del Rey Oz books. There is something about the color and simplicity of the image that I really like. The Gnome King is shown soaring through the sky to the Emerald City, wearing a Flying Cloak of Invisibility (take that, Harry Potter!). The city is seen beneath the flying gnome, and the yellow hills in the background indicate that we must be gazing toward the Winkie country - originally in the west, but I don't recall at this point in the series if it was still in the west or had moved to the east. As I've mentioned before, compass points and countries have a way of shifting on maps of Oz.

John R. Neill did a drawing of this same incident for the original book. The image is very similar, but I do like the huge cloud Herring has placed behind the king. The Emerald City itself is adapted from the Neill illustration used on the original endpapers of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz.

As with all the Thompson covers, this image was cropped for use on the published book, losing much of the landscape and sky. On these editions the printed cover images do extend over the spine of the book, which accounts for some of the extra finished area in the paintings.

Stained Glass

My partner and I own a stained glass studio, (centurystudios.com) and over the years have done quite a few Oz related projects. We made panels that were sold by Books of Wonder for a number of years, but have also done independent projects for clients, or just for the fun of it. I'm showing two window projects we did in the past, the first being the portrait of Ozma from the endpapers of Emerald City of Oz, and the other a group image using elements from an Emerald City color plate and additional characters. These are always fun pieces to create.

Currently I'm working up the pattern for a window based on the Lufkin mural design, painted by John R. Neill - the image shown below is taken from Oz-Story #6, published by Hungry Tiger Press. This will be a larger window and should be a lot of fun when it's done - but that won't be for quite a while. As it's a personal project, it will have to be worked in around other things.

The Gnome King of Oz

The Gnome King of Oz was Ruth Plumly Thompson's 1927 Oz title. I've never liked the fact that the character was now the Gnome King, rather than the Nome King - the change occurred in Kabumpo in Oz. Admittedly, it does correct what could be perceived as a spelling error, but the character was originally named the Nome King and I think he should remain that way. Chances are, it was a publishers' decision rather than Thompson's own preference.

This book introduces Peter from Philadelphia, one of Thompson's boy characters, who returns in later Oz books as well. L. Frank Baum tended to send girls to Oz, Thompson sent boys - I suppose she may have been trying to balance things out!

Songs of Spring

Songs of Spring, from 1916, is a paper covered book published by the Uplifters Club of Los Angeles. L. Frank Baum belonged to this group, which was an offshoot of the Los Angeles Athletic Club, and is pictured on the front cover, on the far right.

The Uplifters was formed by Los Angeles businessmen, and was similar to the idea of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco. The Scarecrow of Oz is dedicated to the Uplifters, and members of the club backed the short lived Oz Film Company.

The book compiles poems from the "Spring Poets' Dinner" of 1914, 1915 and 1916. Baum wrote the introduction and is listed as Poet Laureate of the Uplifters. He also contributed a couple pieces of poetry to this book - as well as being mentioned in several. Apparently Baum played the bass drum in the Uplifters band, and made quite an impression!

The Uplifters established a social club and ranch in Rustic Canyon, near Santa Monica, and many members built second homes there for weekend retreats. The club disbanded in 1947.

One of Baum's pieces -

The Massacre

The Spring is the time to make verses;
It's also the time to hear curses;
And I know that I'd orter
Be lead to the slaughter,
Unless the next poem far worse is.

Sketches

Today I'm showing two pencil sketches by John R. Neill, for unknown projects. On the right is a delicate nude study, with a suggestion of tree and landscape behind the figure. On the left, a rear view of a man in contemporary dress, similar to many magazine pieces drawn by the artist. These are both very sensitively drawn, and I think they are a lovely pair of examples.

Del Rey Hungry Tiger

Michael Herring's exciting cover for the Del Rey edition of The Hungry Tiger of Oz features the Hungry Tiger and friends traveling down a firefall. This would be along the same lines as a waterfall, only different... I have to admit, this painting makes me think of a circus poster - it must be something about the tiger.

On the back of the tiger we have Betsy Bobbin, Prince Reddy of Rash, and the interesting fellow on the end is Carter Green, the Vegetable Man - the flames make his ears (of corn) pop. Yet another example of the puns scattered throughout the Oz books!

John R. Neill provided a color plate of this same incident for the original book. He provides a more fanciful vision of this event, with the travelers engulfed in the flames. The super-realistic style employed by Herring does remove some of the magic of the moment, but I think part of the fun of his paintings is the chance to see impossible events presented in a straightforward way. It provides an interesting contrast to Neill's images, which for me will always be the true representation of events.

The printed version of this painting crops quite a bit of the image. As usual, we are focused more closely on the characters.

When I Grow Up

When I Grow Up was originally a series of illustrated poems created by W. W. Denslow for St. Nicholas Magazine in 1909. These poems were compiled together with a few additional pieces and published as a book by The Century Company. Century had already published L. Frank Baum's story Queen Zixi of Ix, which was also serialized in St. Nicholas Magazine.



The book had color plates, as well as line drawings and a number of black and white half-tone illustrations. Unfortunately, the half-tones really don't do justice to Denslow's work - I think he's much better in full color.

A number of caricatures are sprinkled through the book, images of Teddy Roosevelt, Sherlock Holmes, William Jennings Bryan. I'm sure there are others I don't recognize off-hand.

There seems to have only been one printing of this book. But, an interesting bibliographic point has popped up on the two copies I own - the publisher used two different spine imprints for this title.

Hungry Tiger of Oz

The Hungry Tiger of Oz gives Betsy Bobbin another chance as a leading character in an Oz story. Betsy was basically a Dorothy substitute in Tik-Tok of Oz, and tends to simply get lumped along with the other American girls in Oz.

In this book from 1926, Ruth Plumly Thompson used Betsy in a starring role, along with the Hungry Tiger. I feel the Tiger also received minimal attention in other tales - but then, he is rather similar to the Cowardly Lion. One of the nice things about the number of Oz books written, is that almost every character eventually gets a chance to lead a story!

I believe most of the drawings for the color plates in this book survive. From what I can tell, there isn't much rhyme or reason to what does and doesn't exist in terms of Oz artwork.

Movie Editions

The 1939 MGM movie inspired a few special reprints of Oz titles, simple attempts to cash in on the publicity generated by the film. Bobbs Merrill produced a new edition of The Wizard of Oz with sepia toned endpapers featuring several stills and character portraits from the movie.

The dust jacket proudly proclaims it to be "the only edition containing the complete original text..." Unfortunately, by this point many of the Denslow illustrations had been dropped. Only a third of the original color plates were being used, and these are no longer in full color, appearing washed out and dull. The ingenious use of color throughout the book had already been dropped long ago.

Reilly & Lee produced three new "popular editions", selecting The Land of Oz, The Scarecrow of Oz, and The Tin Woodman of Oz. They obviously felt that these titles would have the most appeal to someone who had seen the movie - regardless of where the stories fell in the sequence of publication. These books were larger than the standard Oz titles, and had new covers and dust jackets.

The Land of Oz is particularly interesting, since Dorothy and the Wizard are prominently placed on the cover of the book, when they do not appear in the story!

I mentioned in an earlier post that Reilly & Lee produced a new edition of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz for Sears, Roebuck at this time. This volume is smaller than the standard Oz book.

All of these books feature new, colorful artwork on the covers by uncredited artists - Dorothy and the Wizard is based on a John R. Neill colorplate that was no longer in use, and The Wizard is based on a Denslow drawing . They are certainly eye catching, but I prefer the original artwork of the books.

Declaration of Independence

Here is a John R. Neill drawing for the 4th of July. The caption reads "The crown and class distinctions were never meant to thrive on American soil", and the image shows a colonist grasping a copy of the Declaration of Independence while chasing a British soldier away at sword point. It's a typically energetic Neill drawing, and was published in Pictorial Review, circa 1920.

A label on the reverse side of the board reads "Charge to PR / Order no.5921 / In work 12/13 / Delivery 12/14". There are also two unrelated sketches of cats on the back of the board, one very simple and the other a bit more complete - Neill was once again being a frugal artist.

Thompson Books

Ruth Plumly Thompson wrote other stories during her years as Royal Historian of Oz. One of her earlier books is a collection of short tales called The Princess of Cozytown, which was published by Volland in 1922. This is the same company that published The Perhappsy Chaps, and this book follows the same format - paper covered boards, presented in a matching box. The copy shown on the left is in its original box, and the lovely illustrations are by Janet Laura Scott. The Wonder Book was a collection of stories by Thompson, compiled and published by Reilly & Lee in 1929. Many of these pieces were from her earlier days on the children's page of the Philadelphia Public Ledger newspaper. My copy is pretty worn, but the International Wizard of Oz Club has recently published a new edition of this title.

Annabel

Annabel, from 1906, was the first of L. Frank Baum's pseudonymous books. This is the only title written by Baum under the Suzanne (or Susanne, depending on the edition) Metcalf name.

It's been a while since I read this book, but I remember when I first read this story, I thought the title was a bit strange since the character Annabel doesn't have much to do. However, she does inspire the protagonist so I suppose the title is appropriate!

This book is very difficult to find copies of, and generally quite expensive. My rather worn copy is the second edition, with a new cover design. The first printing was more in the style of Aunt Jane's Nieces and Sam Steele's Adventures - a slightly smaller, simpler book with a paper label on the cover. For Annabel, the label was shaped like a bow.

Lost King of Oz

The Lost King of Oz, from 1924, re-introduces the wicked witch Mombi - last seen in The Marvelous Land of Oz. In this book, Ruth Plumly Thompson attempts to tie up some of the loose ends that L. Frank Baum left floating through the Oz series. I always liked Mombi, and was glad to meet up with her again. Having had her magical powers removed, the old woman became a cook, and developed some rather amazing culinary products and abilities.

I like the cover of this book - the colors are vibrant, and I think it is one of the nicer images of Ozma. She still appears to be a young girl, and has not morphed into the dragon lady that she appears to be in some of the later books!

I know of one illustration surviving from this book - the drawing for the color plate shown on the right. As was usual, the original is drawn in black and white, and the colors were added by the printers when printing the book. Since one drawing survived, perhaps a few others did as well!