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Oz #1-7
The Oz Chronicles: Volume 1
Included in this two-volume set are the following stories:
Volume 1
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
The Marvelous Land of Oz,
Ozma of Oz,
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz,
The Road to Oz,
The Emerald City of Oz,
The Patchwork Girl of Oz,
Little Wizard Stories of Oz,
Volume 2
Tik-Tok of Oz,
The Scarecrow of Oz,
Rinkitink in Oz,
The Lost Princess of Oz,
The Tin Woodman of Oz,
The Magic of Oz,
Glinda of Oz.
Volume 1
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
The Marvelous Land of Oz,
Ozma of Oz,
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz,
The Road to Oz,
The Emerald City of Oz,
The Patchwork Girl of Oz,
Little Wizard Stories of Oz,
Volume 2
Tik-Tok of Oz,
The Scarecrow of Oz,
Rinkitink in Oz,
The Lost Princess of Oz,
The Tin Woodman of Oz,
The Magic of Oz,
Glinda of Oz.
671 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
20 people are currently reading
320 people want to read
About the author
L. Frank Baum
3,210 books2,764 followersalso wrote under the names:
* Edith van Dyne,
* Floyd Akers,
* Schuyler Staunton,
* John Estes Cooke,
* Suzanne Metcalf,
* Laura Bancroft,
* Louis F. Baum,
* Captain Hugh Fitzgerald
Lyman Frank Baum was an American author best known for his children's fantasy books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, part of a series. In addition to the 14 Oz books, Baum penned 41 other novels (not including four lost, unpublished novels), 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema.
Born and raised in Chittenango, New York, Baum moved west after an unsuccessful stint as a theater producer and playwright. He and his wife opened a store in South Dakota and he edited and published a newspaper. They then moved to Chicago, where he worked as a newspaper reporter and published children's literature, coming out with the first Oz book in 1900. While continuing his writing, among his final projects he sought to establish a film studio focused on children's films in Los Angeles, California.
His works anticipated such later commonplaces as television, augmented reality, laptop computers (The Master Key), wireless telephones (Tik-Tok of Oz), women in high-risk and action-heavy occupations (Mary Louise in the Country), and the ubiquity of advertising on clothing (Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work).
* Edith van Dyne,
* Floyd Akers,
* Schuyler Staunton,
* John Estes Cooke,
* Suzanne Metcalf,
* Laura Bancroft,
* Louis F. Baum,
* Captain Hugh Fitzgerald
Lyman Frank Baum was an American author best known for his children's fantasy books, particularly The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, part of a series. In addition to the 14 Oz books, Baum penned 41 other novels (not including four lost, unpublished novels), 83 short stories, over 200 poems, and at least 42 scripts. He made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen; the 1939 adaptation of the first Oz book became a landmark of 20th-century cinema.
Born and raised in Chittenango, New York, Baum moved west after an unsuccessful stint as a theater producer and playwright. He and his wife opened a store in South Dakota and he edited and published a newspaper. They then moved to Chicago, where he worked as a newspaper reporter and published children's literature, coming out with the first Oz book in 1900. While continuing his writing, among his final projects he sought to establish a film studio focused on children's films in Los Angeles, California.
His works anticipated such later commonplaces as television, augmented reality, laptop computers (The Master Key), wireless telephones (Tik-Tok of Oz), women in high-risk and action-heavy occupations (Mary Louise in the Country), and the ubiquity of advertising on clothing (Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work).
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
January 4, 2010
I think this collection would be better read spread out and not straight through. I think the individual stories would have set better with me if I had given them time to digest before heading on to the next story.
I really enjoyed the first story, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." It was so much better than the movie, not so saccharin and really fun story telling. I did get aggravated with the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion's whining but understood it was needed to get the point of the story across, especially keeping in mind this was written for children.
With each story I became more and more frustrated. Sometimes I wanted to ask Baum if he was being paid by the word due to the highly repetitive nature of the books. Other times his magical fairyland plot devices felt more like a cop out to finish the book. Dorothy Gale, who seemed to just be a little girl in the first book, reminded me more and more of a "country bumpkin" after the first story. She couldn't pronounce words, she became pushy, and really downright annoying at times.
During the last story "The Patchwork Girl of Oz," I felt like I had to finish as I'd already devoted so much time to the book. While the story in itself was nice it had such an abrupt ending as if Baum was merrily writing away when his published stopped by to pick up the book so he just tacked on a final chapter and called in good. I also found myself skimming Scraps poems because she was driving me crazy!
While I know I'll read volume two, I think I may have to read a few books in between to get in the mood again.
I really enjoyed the first story, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz." It was so much better than the movie, not so saccharin and really fun story telling. I did get aggravated with the Scarecrow and Cowardly Lion's whining but understood it was needed to get the point of the story across, especially keeping in mind this was written for children.
With each story I became more and more frustrated. Sometimes I wanted to ask Baum if he was being paid by the word due to the highly repetitive nature of the books. Other times his magical fairyland plot devices felt more like a cop out to finish the book. Dorothy Gale, who seemed to just be a little girl in the first book, reminded me more and more of a "country bumpkin" after the first story. She couldn't pronounce words, she became pushy, and really downright annoying at times.
During the last story "The Patchwork Girl of Oz," I felt like I had to finish as I'd already devoted so much time to the book. While the story in itself was nice it had such an abrupt ending as if Baum was merrily writing away when his published stopped by to pick up the book so he just tacked on a final chapter and called in good. I also found myself skimming Scraps poems because she was driving me crazy!
While I know I'll read volume two, I think I may have to read a few books in between to get in the mood again.
July 10, 2020
Check out my individual reviews on each book's main page!
July 7, 2024
L. Frank Baum’s fertile imagination gave readers an immortal creation in the land of Oz. In his very first novel about this topsy-turvy country, he set up the transition from a world steeped in the gray grimness of the Great Depression to a colorful fairy land peopled with bizarre and strange beings. It became the inspiration for a classic MGM film, Broadway musical, graphic novels and loads of reinterpretations by other gifted authors.
Mr. Baum didn’t want to make a typical story of ogres, giants, trolls, etc., which were often found in the contemporary morality tales meant to school young children. Instead, he created wonder tales, the Oz stories, with a young girl named Dorothy Gale as the protagonist. In fact, most of the rulers in Baum’s land of Oz are female, whether they are good, bad, indifferent or wicked. (This was no accident. Mr. Baum’s wife, Maud Gage, was a daughter of suffragist activist Matilda J. Gage; Mr. Baum himself was an active and long-time supporter of women’s rights. This mindset definitely made its way into the Oz books.)
The Oz books have their share of flaws. We’re never given Dorothy’s age; it’s simply stated that she’s a little girl, an orphan child who laughs easily and cries when she’s upset. Even so, any reader can tell that Dorothy’s speech in the very first novel doesn’t sound anything like how a real child talks. It’s too sophisticated and grammatically correct. How many children do you know who would say, “They surely will never do for a long journey, Toto.”? Mr. Baum seemed to realize this and overcompensated in succeeding novels by giving Dorothy strange contractions in her speech like “comfor’ble”, “poss’bly”, “’spectable” and “’spected”, for example. (It really isn’t an improvement.)
However, Mr. Baum’s readership was much less discerning. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz prompted youthful readers to clamor for more and numerous sequels were penned. Baum had no doubt intended to make his novel a one-off publication. After all, he had written the book only at the behest of his mother-in-law who had overheard him telling them as bedtime stories for his young sons. This probably accounts for the glaring inconsistencies that crop up from one novel to the next.
Clearly, Mr. Baum wasn’t a very careful writer since he didn’t keep track of internal storylines, plot points or character traits. However, we can’t deny his inventiveness. It is in The Road to Oz, e.g., that the reader is introduced to travel by soap bubble, invented by the Wizard himself, and seized on by the good people at MGM as the particular travel for the beloved Glinda, the Good Witch of the South.
In spite of Mr. Baum’s innovative writing style, the books are very uneven in narrative quality. None of the later novels ever equaled the success of the first two. The Road to Oz starts off bafflingly with Dorothy talking to a stranger known simply as a shaggy man. There’s no introduction, no indication of who he is or how he arrived. He’s just THERE and is asking Dorothy directions for the road to Butterfield.
Baum went in for weak puns (although not too many of them, thank goodness) and some of his later creations seem merely to be common garden-variety objects given life rather than unusual beings. The Phanfasms are beauties who disguise themselves as hideous ogres; the Wheelers are people with wheels for hands and feet. He creates Nick Chopper, a flesh man who became tin, and Tik-Tok, a rotund robot that needs re-winding. Then we get kingdoms composing of anthropomorphic foxes, donkeys, rabbits, living cut-out paper dolls, kitchen utensils, bread objects like cinnamon buns, biscuits, et al. This is just silliness for the sake of silliness, with little spark. It’s about as imaginative as sock puppets.
This collection of the first seven Oz books ends with what I’ve come to realize is a kind of tyranny on the part of the women who rule Oz and the Wizard. They maintain a strict monopoly on magic; no one else is ever allowed to wield it. So when poor Ojo the Unlucky tries to get a magical cure to free his uncle who has been unintentionally turned into marble by the magician Dr. Pipt, he runs into setback after setback.
On the one hand, these many trips undertaken by the various characters are meant to illustrate the well-known saw that it’s not the destination that matters but the journeys themselves. The travails, hardships, dangers and suffering are what form character not the ends of the travel. Fine. But what is the point of trying to achieve a result through hard work if everything is fixed simply by a wave of the hand and magic words? Dorothy’s means to get back home in the first book turn out to have been literally at her feet the whole time. Ojo might have spared himself the trouble of getting magical items and simply traveled to the Emerald City to get the Wizard to fix his uncle. Many people are simply whisked home by Ozma using a Magic Belt stolen from Roquat the Nome King.
Magic is often both the cause of and solution to people’s problems. In a way, you can understand why Glinda and Ozma disapprove of its wanton use, especially with things so carelessly brought to life like the Patchwork Girl, the Glass Cat, Jack Pumpkinhead, a cacophonous talking phonograph and the hastily cobbled-together Gump. (Most of these things are more trouble than they’re worth and such sources of aggravation you wonder what their creators were thinking.) But the stern magical cartel seems a poor answer at best, with Ozma’s decisions to destroy another person’s paraphernalia a tad dictatorial.
You’re not supposed to ask questions like this about such whimsical books, obviously made for the entertainment of undiscriminating children. But when they’re put together in an anthology critical thinking can’t be avoided. If you want your children to know that Mr. Baum wrote more than the literary precursor to Wicked, give these books a try. Just hope they don’t start shouting, “But that’s not the way it happened!”
Mr. Baum didn’t want to make a typical story of ogres, giants, trolls, etc., which were often found in the contemporary morality tales meant to school young children. Instead, he created wonder tales, the Oz stories, with a young girl named Dorothy Gale as the protagonist. In fact, most of the rulers in Baum’s land of Oz are female, whether they are good, bad, indifferent or wicked. (This was no accident. Mr. Baum’s wife, Maud Gage, was a daughter of suffragist activist Matilda J. Gage; Mr. Baum himself was an active and long-time supporter of women’s rights. This mindset definitely made its way into the Oz books.)
The Oz books have their share of flaws. We’re never given Dorothy’s age; it’s simply stated that she’s a little girl, an orphan child who laughs easily and cries when she’s upset. Even so, any reader can tell that Dorothy’s speech in the very first novel doesn’t sound anything like how a real child talks. It’s too sophisticated and grammatically correct. How many children do you know who would say, “They surely will never do for a long journey, Toto.”? Mr. Baum seemed to realize this and overcompensated in succeeding novels by giving Dorothy strange contractions in her speech like “comfor’ble”, “poss’bly”, “’spectable” and “’spected”, for example. (It really isn’t an improvement.)
However, Mr. Baum’s readership was much less discerning. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz prompted youthful readers to clamor for more and numerous sequels were penned. Baum had no doubt intended to make his novel a one-off publication. After all, he had written the book only at the behest of his mother-in-law who had overheard him telling them as bedtime stories for his young sons. This probably accounts for the glaring inconsistencies that crop up from one novel to the next.
Clearly, Mr. Baum wasn’t a very careful writer since he didn’t keep track of internal storylines, plot points or character traits. However, we can’t deny his inventiveness. It is in The Road to Oz, e.g., that the reader is introduced to travel by soap bubble, invented by the Wizard himself, and seized on by the good people at MGM as the particular travel for the beloved Glinda, the Good Witch of the South.
In spite of Mr. Baum’s innovative writing style, the books are very uneven in narrative quality. None of the later novels ever equaled the success of the first two. The Road to Oz starts off bafflingly with Dorothy talking to a stranger known simply as a shaggy man. There’s no introduction, no indication of who he is or how he arrived. He’s just THERE and is asking Dorothy directions for the road to Butterfield.
Baum went in for weak puns (although not too many of them, thank goodness) and some of his later creations seem merely to be common garden-variety objects given life rather than unusual beings. The Phanfasms are beauties who disguise themselves as hideous ogres; the Wheelers are people with wheels for hands and feet. He creates Nick Chopper, a flesh man who became tin, and Tik-Tok, a rotund robot that needs re-winding. Then we get kingdoms composing of anthropomorphic foxes, donkeys, rabbits, living cut-out paper dolls, kitchen utensils, bread objects like cinnamon buns, biscuits, et al. This is just silliness for the sake of silliness, with little spark. It’s about as imaginative as sock puppets.
This collection of the first seven Oz books ends with what I’ve come to realize is a kind of tyranny on the part of the women who rule Oz and the Wizard. They maintain a strict monopoly on magic; no one else is ever allowed to wield it. So when poor Ojo the Unlucky tries to get a magical cure to free his uncle who has been unintentionally turned into marble by the magician Dr. Pipt, he runs into setback after setback.
On the one hand, these many trips undertaken by the various characters are meant to illustrate the well-known saw that it’s not the destination that matters but the journeys themselves. The travails, hardships, dangers and suffering are what form character not the ends of the travel. Fine. But what is the point of trying to achieve a result through hard work if everything is fixed simply by a wave of the hand and magic words? Dorothy’s means to get back home in the first book turn out to have been literally at her feet the whole time. Ojo might have spared himself the trouble of getting magical items and simply traveled to the Emerald City to get the Wizard to fix his uncle. Many people are simply whisked home by Ozma using a Magic Belt stolen from Roquat the Nome King.
Magic is often both the cause of and solution to people’s problems. In a way, you can understand why Glinda and Ozma disapprove of its wanton use, especially with things so carelessly brought to life like the Patchwork Girl, the Glass Cat, Jack Pumpkinhead, a cacophonous talking phonograph and the hastily cobbled-together Gump. (Most of these things are more trouble than they’re worth and such sources of aggravation you wonder what their creators were thinking.) But the stern magical cartel seems a poor answer at best, with Ozma’s decisions to destroy another person’s paraphernalia a tad dictatorial.
You’re not supposed to ask questions like this about such whimsical books, obviously made for the entertainment of undiscriminating children. But when they’re put together in an anthology critical thinking can’t be avoided. If you want your children to know that Mr. Baum wrote more than the literary precursor to Wicked, give these books a try. Just hope they don’t start shouting, “But that’s not the way it happened!”
December 25, 2022
It was interesting to read the original Wizard of Oz, but it seemed that the quality of the stories that followed got worse. The first two and the last one in this collection were the best.
June 6, 2016
christmas present from myke.
July 25, 2021
I'll give Baum one thing; he has a knack for creating interesting characters. Each new work adds a host of new individuals to the Oz mythology. One of my big gripes, however, is that Dorothy isn't much of a protagonist. It's more a case of things happening to her, and she reacts. She is along for the ride as much as we readers. She also comes off as a bit of a country bumpkin in the later books when Baum tries to add a bit of vernacular to her dialogue. Some of the stories are definitely better than others, but it does become a bit of an exercise in repetition after a point.
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September 1, 2024hoopla
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
The Marvelous Land of Oz,
Ozma of Oz,
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz,
The Road to Oz,
The Emerald City of Oz,
The Patchwork Girl of Oz,
Little Wizard Stories of Oz, (short stories)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,
The Marvelous Land of Oz,
Ozma of Oz,
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz,
The Road to Oz,
The Emerald City of Oz,
The Patchwork Girl of Oz,
Little Wizard Stories of Oz, (short stories)
June 15, 2018
Amazing with the land of Oz, Ev, chickens, vegetable people, and more!
March 7, 2020
I knew the movie and decided it was time to know more about the source. The stories are funny and witty and easy on the go.
May 1, 2024
Some of the stories were better than others. But what an imagination this man had!
April 9, 2015
I really understand why these books appealed to the children of the era in which they were written. The characters are so imaginative and so visually unique--in a time when children weren't overexposed to tv, movies, video games. These books must have made their imaginations explode with the imagery!!
I also really enjoyed reading the author's note at the beginning of each story. How gratifying it must have been for him to receive all those letters from children giving him feedback and asking for more! And the child who suggested a telegraphic message to Dorothy in Oz to get the stories started again!! The genius of a child!! Things are so simple and straight forward for them!
I had never read any of these stories before, but of course had seen The Wizard of Oz on television yearly since I was a child. I say....read these stories to your children!!!! READ them!! The time you spend giggling over the characters will be worth it!!!
I also really enjoyed reading the author's note at the beginning of each story. How gratifying it must have been for him to receive all those letters from children giving him feedback and asking for more! And the child who suggested a telegraphic message to Dorothy in Oz to get the stories started again!! The genius of a child!! Things are so simple and straight forward for them!
I had never read any of these stories before, but of course had seen The Wizard of Oz on television yearly since I was a child. I say....read these stories to your children!!!! READ them!! The time you spend giggling over the characters will be worth it!!!
March 3, 2008
This is the "Harry Potter" series of 100 years ago. This is the first several books of the OZ series written by L. Frank Baum. It begins with the original "the Wonderful Wizard of Oz" and proceeds through several of the other early novels. There is an "Oz Chronicles 2" with the remaining stories by Baum, but it wasn't listed on here (at least I couldn't find it - I am currently reading this book). And "Oz Chronicles 3" deals with other magical kingdoms surrounding Oz - I have bought it and will read it next. So if you like the movie and are a fan of "Harry Potter," you may want to check out the OZ books!
September 30, 2008
This book actually contains the first 7 books in the Oz series. I absolutely love this series. Baum was so incredibly imaginative and often times very funny. It's very child-like though good for adults too if you just want to read some fantasy fluff. I do find that I have to mix it up a little...read an Oz story and then a few grown up books. Reading a bunch in a row might turn your brain to mush. Mush sprinkled with pixie-dust, but mush nonetheless.
November 18, 2010
I did enjoy reading the original Oz tales (I had no idea there were so many!) though the are definitely geared toward a young audience. I'd recommend them for bedtimes stories for young children. Their imaginations will appreciate the nuttiness that happens throughout the story and will also enjoy the important roles children always play.
August 27, 2014
I love the movie "Wizard of Oz" and happened to have a copy of "Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz" as a child. Reading the original tale, as well as many further adventures was a true delight.
Sometimes Dorothy and her friends are a bit ridiculous, but it IS a children's tale. And Baum does a good job of throwing in some puns and sarcasm for adults, too.
Sometimes Dorothy and her friends are a bit ridiculous, but it IS a children's tale. And Baum does a good job of throwing in some puns and sarcasm for adults, too.
February 6, 2008
L. Frank Baum has a great imagination! Awesome continuations of the Wizard of Oz!
Want to read
March 3, 2008I don't think I've ever read the OZ series!
May 29, 2010
I had never read any of the books before. These stories are enchanting and gave me a glimpse into the social climate during the time of L. Frank Baum
September 22, 2010
The Oz Chronicles, and Alice's Adventure's In Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass are some of the best novels ever written.
October 29, 2010
I've only read about half of the books. But all of them so far are very good!
Want to read
January 15, 2012read the movie part of the oz stories in baum's original writing, but not sure if it was abridged and not sure of what number that one was. must look into....
December 28, 2013
What strange stories these are. Good, but I don't plan on reading them again.
December 6, 2014
I think these might be better if they were read separately. it gets really tedious reading them all together like this.
Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews