The Real Wizard of Oz: The Life and Times of L. Frank Baum

This book is quite simply one of the most entertaining reads I have had for a while. In coming to write a review, here, I have "stopped to read" Theodore A. Rushton's review, above, and frankly, I find it hard to do so after reading Mr. Rushton's fine take on this wonderful book. Thus, I bow out, and, instead, send you to his review...it is dead-on, and I cannot say more.... ~G

This book tells the story of the creator of the beloved tales of Oz. Author Rebecca Loncraine feels the geographical places and the historical times where and when L. Frank Baum lived informed his writing and most specifically influenced this most famous work "The Wizard of Oz". For instance, she describes how his life in North Dakota parallels the dull drab plain that Dorothy leaves for the colorful world of Oz. She shows how the influence the suffrage movement influenced his use of female characters (and his publishers' responses to them). Baum is a man of many talents. Before Oz, he was a manager of entertaining road shows and a traveling sales rep. As an entrepreneur and he owned, as sole proprietor, a luxury goods store, a newspaper and a trade magazine devoted to display windows. His loves his wife, writing, gardening and the world and personalities of Oz which he feels he discovered (as opposed to created). Despite the many good things about this book, I can not give it 5 stars. Some areas need more attention, others need pruning. Baum's editorials from the "Aberdeen Daily News", which may be at the heart of his character, are presented, but only slightly discussed. Little is said of this children's author's relationship with his own children. (Did he take his kids to Cairo and/or on other travels? Why did Maud go alone to the opening of the film when her children were present?) Similarly, more is needed on Baum's association with Wallace Denslow. Some text could be shortened. For instance, giving just enough on the Chicago World's Fair for the author to build her thesis that it was the inspiration for Emerald City. Spiritualism, similarly is overdone. (Dorothy's heal clicking having its genesis in the Fox sister's toe clicking seems to be stretching.) This is a good readable book and if you are interested in Baum and his period, this is a good starting point. It may be a starting point for future biographers as well.

L Frank Baum was a man of ideas, typical of the times he grew up in when electric light was just coming into common use and life on the frontier was losing its primitive reputation. Baum didn't really know any trade but he had a bent for publishing, decorating, and salesmanship. He married a woman whose mother was a well-known suffragette and the two of them went to live in the Dakota territory where Baum endeavored to support the family of six (four boys) by opening a grand emporium. He had a flair for choosing bright beautiful objects to make the frontier homes look sophisticated, despite the fact that they sat on the edge of the vast dusty plains. The store failed but Baum never forgot the isolation and loneliness of the Great Plains. Nor did he forget the illuminating sight of the Chicago Exposition with its White City, a marvelous construction of fake walls and statuary, lit by thousands of lightbulbs and surrounded by shimmering pools. In Chicago he was a traveling salesman whose fortunes turned around somewhat when he began to design store windows, another piece of fakery that enchanted the passersby. Put this together with his respect for women, and let it percolate, and one day Baum sat down and began to write an extraordinary book for children he called "The Emerald City" in which a strong minded little girl escapes from the dreary plains of Kansas and winds up in a pretend city overseen by a humbug of a wizard whose work consists of using carefully staged tricks to maintain a pretense of power. The story, following on the limited success of Baums Tales of Father Goose, made him an overnight sensation and he was able to feed his family and settle them in comfort at last. Rebecca Loncraine has de-mythologized the many folk legends about the creation of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and taken us through the production of the movie and the growth of the book and movie as an integral part of American folklore. Barbara Bamberger Scott (See my many reviews at Curled Up With a Good Book - I specialize in "non-fiction with a human face")

Failed! Failed! Failed! is the basic story of L. Frank Baum, the man who created some of the best-loved characters in children's fiction and "set the stage" for the outstanding film that became the highlight of Judy Garland's career. 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,' published when Baum was 44, is a distinctly upbeat American story that avoids the grim horror and gloom of European stories in the same genre. The Emerald City is a mythical version of America, happily isolated from real life and filled with wondrous new technology and unlimited resources. Baum emphasized American qualities of egalitarianism, tolerance, suspicion of all elites and a deep mistrust of all leaders -- even elected ones. The 'Wizard' is a typical American politician, a little man always hiding behind a screen of pretense, fantasy and make-believe. As an immigrant, Loncraine has great insight in understanding Americans and Oz; for her, many attitudes taken for granted in this country are new and intriguing. The 'Oz' books became instantly popular because they reflect the inner spirit of America, which explains why Baum was deluged with requests to write more and more about Dorothy and Oz. Often it takes an outsider to notice the differences which make us unique. Born in 1856, Baum had an upper-middle-class upbringing by a father who was a prominent businessman. He was fascinated by the imagery and make-believe of the theatre; after his early success on the New York stage, his father gave him a string of theatres. He began writing comedies and melodramas until business troubles, not entirely his own, ended this venture. When he was 26 he married Maud Gage, an independent-minded woman who was a suffragette and early feminist. It suited him perfectly, which helps explain why Dorothy is such a strong-minded figure in the Oz books. Two years later he went west and into a string of failures. It wasn't until he moved to Chicago in 1897 and founded 'The Show Window,' a journal which taught shopkeepers how to effectively display goods in their store windows, that success began. In 'The Show Window,' Loncraine writes, "Baum reveled in the use of trapdoors, invisible mirrors, false walls, and altered perspectives that enabled him to 'make ordinary Things' in shop-front windows 'appear marvelous'." His theatrical background and experiences further west were the basis of his success. But, he wanted to write. He published 'Mother Goose in Prose' in 1897, then began work on a new story about a child who travels from the dull grey west to a marvelous land called Oz. The story "... came out of the farmlands, woodlands, and lakes of his childhood, the nightmarish Civil War amputees he must have seen, the scarecrow that had haunted his dreams, and the folktales he had read; it came out of his experiences out West, amid drought, cyclones, and rural poverty, out of the gleaming fake White City of the Chicago World's Fair, and out of his fascination with illusions and