Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (Illustrated Edition) (Dodo Press) - Softcover

Lyman Frank Baum (1856-1919) was an American author, actor, and independent filmmaker best known as the creator, along with illustrator W. W. Denslow, of one of the most popular books ever written in American children's literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), better known today as simply The Wizard of Oz. He wrote thirteen sequels, nine other fantasy novels, and a plethora of other works, and made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen. Amongst his other famous works are Mother Goose in Prose (1897), American Fairy Tales (1901), The Master Key: An Electrical Fairy Tale (1901), The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), The Surprising Adventures of the Magical Monarch of Mo and His People (1902), The Enchanted Island of Yew (1903), Sky Island (1912) and Mary Louise (1916).

"Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz is the fourth book set in the Land of Oz written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by John R. Neill. It was published on June 18, 1908 and reunites Dorothy with the humbug Wizard from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This is one of only two of the original forty Oz books (the other being The Emerald City of Oz) to be illustrated with watercolor paintings [not included in this edition].

Baum, having resigned himself to writing a series of Oz books, set up elements of this book in the prior Ozma of Oz. He was not entirely pleased with this, as the introduction to Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz opens with the protest that he knows many tales of many lands, and hoped that children would permit him to tell them those tales.

Very little of the story -- six of the twenty chapters -- actually takes place in Oz. As in Ozma of Oz before it, and in the books after, Oz is not the land where the adventures take place, but the land the characters are seeking as a refuge from adventure.

The book was dedicated to Harriet Alvena Baum Neal, the author's eldest sister." (Quote from wikipedia.org)

About the Author

"Lyman Frank Baum (May 15, 1856 - May 6, 1919) was an American author, actor, and independent filmmaker best known as the creator, along with illustrator W. W. Denslow, of one of the most popular books in American children's literature, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, better known today as simply The Wizard of Oz. He wrote thirteen sequels, nine other fantasy novels, and a plethora of other works (55 novels in total, 82 short stories, over 200 poems, an unknown number of scripts, and many miscellaneous writings), and made numerous attempts to bring his works to the stage and screen.

Baum was born in Chittenango, New York, into a devout Methodist family of German (father's side) and Scots-Irish (