Every holiday season when I was a child, before the advent of video recorders, my family waited for The Wizard of Oz movie to come back on the air. The scarcity and annual tradition created even more enchantment than just the magic of the story itself.  

That was my first introduction to L. Frank Baum’s wonderful story, although I did eventually borrow many of the sequels from the library.

This month is the 125th anniversary of the publication of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and what a legacy Baum’s imagination has left to the world. Most people know the adventures of Kansas farm girl Dorothy and her companions the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man from the iconic Hollywood movie, but it all began in 1900 when Lyman Frank Baum put some ideas to paper.

L. Frank Baum circa 1911
By George Steckel – Los Angeles Times photographic archive, UCLA Library, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18490343

Baum began writing as a child, and together with his brother Henry, published on their inexpensive printing press a journal named after their family estate, Rose Lawn, as well as pamphlets about stamp collecting. But Lyman had always been imaginative – he left Peekskill Military Academy after being disciplined for ‘daydreaming’.

As an adult he dabbled in raising chickens, stage hand, store clerk, and writing both plays and songs. Several years after marrying, he and his wife Maud moved to drought-ridden South Dakota, where he opened a shop briefly, and when that failed, began editing the local newspaper. Eventually he moved his family to Chicago to write and publish an assortment of books and sometimes work as a travelling salesman.

All of these experiences found his way into a story about a young farm girl whisked away by tornado to a magical, beautiful, colourful land.

The title page of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, also known as The Wizard of Oz, a 1900 children’s novel written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by W. W. Denslow. By William Wallace Denslow – Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3470848

A year before the publication of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, he’d worked with illustrator W. W. Denslow on a collection of nonsense poetry, which became the best-selling children’s book of 1899. Following on the heels of that success, they partnered once again a year later, and it was Denslow’s charming illustrations that transformed the story and brought Baum’s characters to life.

Baum wrote, in the introduction, that the book “aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out”.

In his writer’s imagination, dried out South Dakota became dust-bowl Kansas. His niece, Dorothy, a sickly child who his wife had adored in place of the daughter she never had herself, died at the age of five months, and Baum kept her eternally alive as the heroine of his story.

Dorothy catches Toto by the ear as their house is caught up in a cyclone (tornado). First edition illustration by W. W. Denslow. By William Wallace Denslow – Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3470879

His childhood nightmares of being chased by a scarecrow with ragged hay fingers transmuted in the friendly, scatterbrained Scarecrow that Dorothy rescues. Baum’s son said the inspiration for the Tin Woodman came from Baum’s fascination with window displays, and he tinkered with an assortment of scrap metals to build a man of tin.

The Cowardly Lion’s genesis has been much debated. Scholars feel that it represented the inner child struggling with fear and searching for courage, drawn perhaps from Baum’s own personality.

Dorothy meeting the Cowardly Lion (Denslow, 1900) By Illustration by W.W. Denslow (d. 1915) – Library of Congress LC Control No.: 03032405 (p. 81), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4674617

The Land of Oz may have, for some reason, been inspired by Australia. In the books, Oz was an island continent somewhere to the west of California, with a great desert surrounded by habitation. In one of the sequels, Ozma of Oz (1907), Dorothy actually returned to Oz because of a great storm at sea while she and Uncle Henry were traveling by ship to Australia.

Chicago’s 1893 fair, when Jackson Square transformed into a luminous confection lit up by a million alabaster lights and filled arches, bridges, domes and pavilions, referred to by the newspapers as the “White City”, may have transformed in Baum’s mind into a magical place of emerald.

The Emerald City (Denslow, 1900)
By W. W. Denslow – https://archive.org/details/wonderfulwizardo00baumiala, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69552113[image error]\"The Monkeys caught Dorothy in their arms and flew away with her.\"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"\"The Monkeys caught Dorothy in their arms and flew away with her.\"","orientation":"0"}" data-image-title="“The Monkeys caught Dorothy in their arms and flew away with her.”" data-image-description="" data-image-caption="

“The Monkeys caught Dorothy in their arms and flew away with her.”

" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/ericajurus.ca/wp-co..." data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/ericajurus.ca/wp-co..." src="https://i0.wp.com/ericajurus.ca/wp-co..." alt="" class="wp-image-3792" style="aspect-ratio:0.7314480308926408;width:470px;height:auto" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/ericajurus.ca/wp-co... 749w, https://i0.wp.com/ericajurus.ca/wp-co... 219w, https://i0.wp.com/ericajurus.ca/wp-co... 768w, https://i0.wp.com/ericajurus.ca/wp-co... 800w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 749px) 100vw, 749px" />The Winged Monkeys transport Dorothy. By William Wallace Denslow – https://www.wfae.org/post/following-yellow-brick-road-back-origins-oz#stream/0, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3481830

Something about L. Frank Baum’s dreams spoke to thousands of children, and to the child inside thousands of adults. The book was an enormous success, and when Hollywood enshrined it in film in 1939 with an incredible cast, the tale of Dorothy, her companions, the Wicked Witch of the West and her terrifying flying monkeys, and the hapless travelling showman masquerading as a wizard in a wonderful city of emerald, became an enduring part of our consciousness. If you haven’t watched it in a while, now’s the perfect time.