The Wizard of Oz (Puffin Classics) - L. Frank Baum [52]
MARRIED: Maud Gage in 1882
CHILDREN: four sons
What was he like?
Baum was born with a weak heart which troubled him throughout his life. He was a quiet child, but was gifted with a vivid imagination that kept him happy and occupied. As an adult, this translated into a man who, despite health problems, had enormous energy for his creative endeavours (which included woodwork, growing prize-winning flowers and playing the piano). Always a dreamer, but with real enthusiasm for anything that captured his imagination, Baum got on well with children and they with him, and he was known to spend hours telling them stories. Baum was an optmist, an unstoppable creative force, writing until his dying day.
Where did he grow up?
Born in Chittenango, New York, Baum was the seventh of nine children, although, sadly, only five of them reached adulthood. They grew up on their parents’ estate — Rose Lawn — and, apart from two unsuccessful years at military college which made him miserable and seriously ill, Frank had all his tutoring there. He loved his home life and, together with a burning ambition to write, his father’s gift of a small press prompted him to print his own newspaper at the age of fifteen, which he called The Rose Lawn Home Journal.
What did he do apart from writing books?
Baum took an interest in ‘fancy poultry’ and with his father and brother, Harry, bred award-winning Hamburg chickens. He went on to open a general store in South Dakota called Baum’s Bazaar, prior to setting up a local newspaper. He also worked as a reporter in Chicago and edited a furniture magazine. But Baum’s enduring love was the stage and, during the course of his life, he performed, managed, taught and wrote for the theatre. He also invested a lot of money in musicals over the years and was heavily involved in the stage production of Oz. Latterly he opened his own film production company in Hollywood. Although he enjoyed success in many of his ventures, many also failed and left him penniless, but his passion for the theatre stayed with him forever.
What did people think of The Wizard of Oz when it was first published in the 1900s?
For the first two years after its publication, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (as it was originally called) was the best-selling children’s book in America. However, the book was banned in some libraries for several years as it was considered not to be quality children’s literature (due to its simple style and language) and was even seen as controversial. Nevertheless, the book sold as many as 90,000 copies in 1900 when it was first published.
Where did L. Frank Baum get the idea for The Wizard of Oz?
The Wizard of Oz sprang from a story that he told to his children and the local neighbourhood kids. The descriptions of Kansas were based on the time he lived in South Dakota. Over the years there have been countless theories on Baum’s intent in writing The Wizard of Oz, yet, in his lifetime, whenever he was asked directly about any hidden meanings, he would reply that his only intention was to make money for his family and to give pleasure to children.
What other books did he write?
Baum wrote two earlier children’s books: Mother Goose in Prose and Father Goose: His Book – the latter being his first collaboration with W. W. Denslow, who illustrated The Wizard of Oz. Baum had not intended to produce a whole Oz series, but due to popular demand he wrote fourteen titles in total. The worldwide appeal of these books (they have been translated into more than forty languages) prompted his publishers to commission Ruth Plumly Thompson to write a further nineteen adventures after he died!
Baum was a prolific writer and keen to explore other avenues and escape his Oz identity, so he used a variety of male and female pen-names. In his lifetime, he wrote over sixty books, mainly for children.
THE WIZARD OF OZ – THE MOVIE
Director: Victor Fleming
Released in 1939, this was not the first film version of the popular book, but it is by far the