The Wizard of Oz by Greg Hildebrandt Jr

The Wizard of Oz by Greg Hildebrandt Jr

Before The Wizard of Oz was a movie, it was a children's book. It was written in 1899 and published in 1900. This edition is a carefully re-constructed facsimile that is as close to the original as modern book printing technology will allow. If you are looking for the earliest release of this children's classic, be prepared to fork over thousands of dollars for the original edition, published as The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in 1900 by the George M. Hill Company . If you want a faithful reconstruction that will make your guests look twice and delight your kids, this is the edition you want.

Please note: as this is a facsimile edition, it will contain all of the flaws and imperfections of the original. This is by definition. Since the original images were engravings, which was a common necessity for book printers of the 1800s, the image quality itself will be different than what many modern readers expect. But, while it contains the flaws of the original, it also has its magic, as well.

As such, it will be a great way to read the story the way its authors originally intended it before Victor Fleming and Hollywood got a hold of it. It will also be a handsome addition to your bookshelf

Best known for his Oz novels, Lyman Frank Baum, was born on May 15, 1856, in Chittenango, New York, to Benjamin Ward Baum, a successful businessman who made his fortune in the oil fields of Pennsylvania, and Cynthia Stanton. He grew up on his parents' estate, Rose Lawn, and was tutored at home until, at the age of twelve, he joined the Peekskill Military Academy. Unable to withstand the school's harsh discipline and strenuous activity, he returned home after only two years. His father bought him a printing press and Baum, together with his younger brother, started his own newspaper, the Rose Lawn Home Journal, where he published articles, editorials, fiction and poetry. In 1880, his father built him a theatre in Richburg, and Baum started writing plays and directing his own acting company. While touring with his modestly successful play, The Maid of Arran, his theatre caught fire destroying not only the theatre but also the only copies of his manuscripts. On November 9, 1882, Baum married Maud Gage. They had four sons. After several failed business attempts, Baum started to write the nursery rhymes he had improvised for his sons. Mother Goose in Prose, a collection of Mother Goose prose stories, was published in 1897 and, two years later, he published the highly successful collection of nonsense poetry, Father Goose, His Book. In 1900, he published the children novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It was an instant success. The novel tells the story of Dorothy, a farm girl who is blown by a cyclone to the magical land of Oz. There, she meets and becomes friends with many memorable characters such as the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow. A successful stage adaptation of the book opened in Chicago in 1902, and the 1939 musical film version became a cinema classic. Fuelled by his success, Baum went on to write more Oz novels such as Ozma of Oz (1907), Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908), and The Road to Oz (1909). Because of his lifelong love of theatre, he financed highly expensive musicals. Despite his success as a writer, Baum had to declare bankruptcy in 1911. After that, he started feverishly writing one Oz book per year: The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913), Tik-Tok of Oz (1914), The Scarecrow of Oz (1915), Rinkitink in Oz (1916), The Lost Princess of Oz (1917), The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918), The Magic of Oz (1919), and Glinda of Oz, his last novel, published posthumously. On May 5, 1919, Baum suffered a stroke and died the next day at his home in Hollywood.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780881010763
ISBN 10	0881010766
Title	The Wizard of Oz
Author	Greg Hildebrandt Jr
Series	Little Unicorn
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Hardback
Publisher	Unicorn Publishing House
Year published	1988-04-01
Number of pages	72
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.