BAUM, L. Frank.
Ozma of Oz.
Chicago: The Reilly & Britton Co. , 1907.
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“...I must say, Dorothy, my dear, that you are very foolish to go back into that stupid, humdrum world again”: First Edition of L. Frank Baum's Ozma of Oz
First edition, first printing of the third Oz book in L. Frank Baum’s celebrated Oz series. First printing with the "O" present on page 11, the advertisement leaf listing only two titles, and retaining the integral illustrated pages 135-136, 153-154, and 221-222, which all show light red offsetting as reported by Hanff. Octavo, original publisher’s full light tan cloth with the publisher's pictorial cloth stamped in red, blue, yellow, and black, bound by Bienvenue and Schmidt, spine stamped in black with the publisher’s spine imprint reading “The Reilly & Britton Co”, color pictorial endpapers, frontispiece, with black and white and colored illustrations by John R. Neill. In very good condition with gentle waving to leaves in latter half, light sunning to the spine, and soiling. Ownership inscription to the front pastedown and half-title page. From the Michael Charles collection of L. Frank Baum and Oz books.
Ozma of Oz (1907) is the third volume in L. Frank Baum's Oz series and by several measures the most consequential of the early sequels, representing a decisive turning point in the development of the franchise. It was the first book in which Baum was clearly intending a series of Oz books rather than a self-contained story — a shift in creative commitment with far-reaching implications for American children's literature. The novel reunites readers with Dorothy Gale, whose absence from The Marvelous Land of Oz had generated considerable protest from young readers, and introduces several figures who would become permanent fixtures of the Oz universe, most notably Tik-Tok, the clockwork man — widely cited as the first manmade mechanical figure in literature, appearing years before the word "robot" was even coined — as well as Billina the Yellow Hen and the Hungry Tiger. The novel is also the first Oz book in which the majority of the action takes place outside the Land of Oz itself, with only the final two chapters set there — reflecting a subtle but significant thematic shift: where Oz had originally been the dangerous land through which Dorothy struggled to return home, it had by the third volume become the longed-for destination, the end and aim of the journey rather than the obstacle.
Ozma of Oz.
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