The Road to Oz (Annotated) E-Book

Lyman Frank Baum

• Herausgeber: Muhammad Humza
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

Everyone loves a party, and when Ozma has a birthday party notables from every part of fairyland attend. You'll meet the famous of Oz, and lots of others, such as Queen Zixi of Ix, John Dough, Chick the Cherub, the Queen of Merryland, Para Bruin the rubber bear and-best of all-Santa Claus himself! Of course there are lots of adventures on that famous road to Oz before the party, during which Dorothy, on her way to Oz for the fourth time, meets such heart-warming characters as the Shaggy Man, Button-Bright, and lovely.....

Leseprobe

L. Frank Baum (1856-1919)

Biography

L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) wrote 69 books beloved by children, including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which became a classic movie.

Lyman Frank Baum was born on May 15, 1856, near Syracuse, New York. His father, Benjamin, was a wealthy oil businessman, and young Frank (who disliked his first name and never used it) grew up in comfort. Because he had a weak heart, Frank led a quiet life as a child and was educated largely by tutors. A brief stay at a military academy was not successful, and Frank returned home to indulge his taste for reading, writing, stamp collecting, and chicken breeding. He als publihed two different monthly newspapers during his teenage years.

L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) wrote 69 books beloved by children, including The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which became a classic movie.

Lyman Frank Baum was born on May 15, 1856, near Syracuse, New York. His father, Benjamin, was a wealthy oil businessman, and young Frank (who disliked his first name and never used it) grew up in comfort. Because he had a weak heart, Frank led a quiet life as a child and was educated largely by tutors. A brief stay at a military academy was not successful, and Frank returned home to indulge his taste for reading, writing, stamp collecting, and chicken breeding. He also published two different monthly newspapers during his teenage years. Baum grew up to become a man of great charm and many interests, yet he had little direction. He pursued a variety of careers ranging from acting to newspaper reporting to theatrical management to writing plays. One of his plays, The Maid of Arran, was a surprise smash hit, and Frank and his company toured with it throughout the United States and Canada in the early 1880s.

While at home on a break from the tour, Baum met and became engaged to Maud Gage, youngest daughter of prominent women's suffrage activist Matilda J. Gage. The strong-willed Matilda did not approve of the impractical Baum, but Maud, equally determined, insisted, and the two were married in November 1882. The marriage, apparently one of opposites, was a happy one, as Maud provided Baum with the stability and good sense he needed, and eventually for their children the discipline he was too gentle to perform.

Baum gave up acting when Maud became pregnant with their first child and all the scenery, props, and costumes for The Maid of Arran were destroyed in a fire. He worked for a time in the family oil business in Syracuse, still writing plays in his spare time, none of which were produced. In the late 1880s he and the family, which now included two sons, moved to the Dakota Territory, where Baum worked for a time as a shopkeeper and then as a newspaper editor, enjoying both jobs but failing financially in each.

By 1891 it was clear that his growing family, now with four sons, required that he find a job that would provide financial stability. They moved to Chicago, where he was first a newspaper reporter but soon took a better paying job as a traveling salesman with a crockery firm. At the suggestion of his mother-in-law, Baum began to write down some of the stories he made up to tell his sons every evening when he was home. One of these stories, Mother Goose in Prose, was published in 1897. The book sold well, and, on the advice of his doctor, Baum gave up his traveling job. Instead, he became the editor of a journal for window-dressers, which also did well.

Baum next decided to collaborate on a children's book with a friend, the artist W. W. Denslow. Father Goose, His Book, published in 1899, was a best-seller. One of the five books he published in 1900, also based on stories he had told his sons and illustrated by Denslow, was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which immediately broke records for sales and made Baum a celebrity. At the suggestion of his publisher, Baum's book, with substantial changes to fit the theatrical tastes of the day, was made into a musical in 1902, which also was a great success and toured the United States for years. A second Oz book, The Marvelous Land of Oz, a clever satire on the women's suffrage movement, was published in 1904 and was very popular, and other Oz books followed, though none matched the originality or sales of the first two books. In addition, over the next two decades he wrote over 35 non-Oz books under various pseudonyms and aimed at various audiences. Most of these were "pot-boilers, " but they did well financially and helped make Baum a wealthy man.

Always looking for new outlets for his creativity, Baum became interested in films. In 1909 he founded a company to produce hand-colored slides featuring characters from his Oz books. These were shown while he narrated and an orchestra played background music. Although highly innovative, these "radio-plays, " as he called them, lost a great deal of money, and in June 1911 he was forced to declare bankruptcy. A later venture into the film business, the Oz Film Company in 1914, produced six movies but experienced severe distribution problems and also failed, though not as disastrously.

Using money Maud had inherited from her mother, the Baums moved to Hollywood, California, in 1910 for Frank's health, and there built Ozcot, a large home with an impressive garden. Here he produced additional Oz books, to a total of 14, which helped ease his financial problems. But with most of his fortune gone and his health failing, in his later years Baum lived quietly at Ozcot, gardening, writing stories, and answering the hundreds of letters he received from Oz-struck children. After a protracted illness in his gall-bladder and a 24 hour coma, he died on May 6, 1919, supposedly uttering, "Now we can cross the Shifting Sands" just a minute before expiring.

Baum's Oz books were so popular and profitable that after his death, with Maud's permission, the publishers continued the series using other writers. In addition, the lasting popularity of Oz was in no small way aided by film versions of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the 1925 silent version with Oliver Hardy as the Tin-Man, and most notably the 1939 classic MGM musical with Judy Garland as Dorothy.

Although Baum's avowed intention was merely to entertain children with unique American creations and American values, his Oz books have been endlessly criticized and analyzed, and they sometimes have been banned from libraries as being too imaginative, too frightening, or even too dull. Nonetheless, they constitute 20th century America's first and most enduring contribution to children's fantasy literature.

Table of Contents

Title

About

To my readers

Chapter 1 - The Way to Butterfield

Chapter 2 - Dorothy Meets Button-Bright

Chapter 3 - A Queer Village

Chapter 4 - King Dox

Chapter 5 - The Rainbow's Daughter

Chapter 6 - The City of Beasts

Chapter 7 - The Shaggy Man's Transformation

Chapter 8 - The Musicker

Chapter 9 - Facing the Scoodlers

Chapter 10 - Escaping the Soup-Kettle

Chapter 11 - Johnny Dooit Does It

Chapter 12 - The Deadly Desert Crossed

Chapter 13 - The Truth Pond

Chapter 14 - Tik-Tok and Billina

Chapter 15 - The Emperor's Tin Castle

Chapter 16 - Visiting the Pumpkin-Field

Chapter 17 - The Royal Chariot Arrives

Chapter 18 - The Emerald City

Chapter 19 - The Shaggy Man's Welcome

Chapter 20 - Princess Ozma of Oz

Chapter 21 - Dorothy Receives the Guests

Chapter 22 - Important Arrivals

Chapter 23 - The Grand Banquet

Chapter 24 - The Birthday Celebration

In which is related how Dorothy Gale of Kansas,

The Shaggy Man, Button Bright, and Polychrome

the Rainbow's Daughter met on an

Enchanted Road and followed

it all the way to the

Marvelous Land

of Oz.

by L. Frank Baum

"Royal Historian of Oz"

To my readers

Well, my dears, here is what you have asked for: another "Oz Book" about Dorothy's strange adventures. Toto is in this story, because you wanted him to be there, and many other characters which you will recognize are in the story, too. Indeed, the wishes of my little correspondents have been considered as carefully as possible, and if the story is not exactly as you would have written it yourselves, you must remember that a story has to be a story before it can be written down, and the writer cannot change it much without spoiling it.

In the preface to "Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz" I said I would like to write some stories that were not "Oz" stories, because I thought I had written about Oz long enough; but since that volume was published I have been fairly deluged with letters from children imploring me to "write more about Dorothy," and "more about Oz," and since I write only to please the children I shall try to respect their wishes.

There are some new characters in this book that ought to win your live. I'm very fond of the shaggy man myself, and I think you will like him, too. As for Polychrome—the Rainbow's Daughter—and stupid little Button-Bright, they seem to have brought a new element of fun into these Oz stories, and I am glad I discovered them. Yet I am anxious to have you write and tell me how you like them.

Since this book was written I have received some very remarkable News from The Land of Oz, which has greatly astonished me. I believe it will astonish you, too, my dears, when you hear it. But it is such a long and exciting story that it must be saved for another book—and perhaps that book will be the last story that will ever be told about the Land of Oz.

L. FRANK BAUM

Coronado, 1909.

Chapter

1

The Way to Butterfield

"PLEASE, MISS," SAID the shaggy man, "can you tell me the road to Butterfield?"

Dorothy looked him over. Yes, he was shaggy, all right, but there was a twinkle in his eye that seemed pleasant.

"Oh yes," she replied; "I can tell you. But it isn't this road at all."

"No?"

"You cross the ten-acre lot, follow the lane to the highway, go north to the five branches, and take—let me see—"

"To be sure, miss; see as far as Butterfield, if you like," said the shaggy man.

"You take the branch next the willow stump, I b'lieve; or else the branch by the gopher holes; or else—"

"Won't any of 'em do, miss?"

"'Course not, Shaggy Man. You must take the right road to get to Butterfield."

"And is that the one by the gopher stump, or—"

"Dear me!" cried Dorothy. "I shall have to show you the way, you're so stupid. Wait a minute till I run in the house and get my sunbonnet."

The shaggy man waited. He had an oat-straw in his mouth, which he chewed slowly as if it tasted good; but it didn't. There was an apple-tree beside the house, and some apples had fallen to the ground. The shaggy man thought they would taste better than the oat-straw, so he walked over to get some. A little black dog with bright brown eyes dashed out of the farm-house and ran madly toward the shaggy man, who had already picked up three apples and put them in one of the big wide pockets of his shaggy coat. The little dog barked and made a dive for the shaggy man's leg; but he grabbed the dog by the neck and put it in his big pocket along with the apples. He took more apples, afterward, for many were on the ground; and each one that he tossed into his pocket hit the little dog somewhere upon the head or back, and made him growl. The little dog's name was Toto, and he was sorry he had been put in the shaggy man's pocket.

Pretty soon Dorothy came out of the house with her sunbonnet, and she called out:

"Come on, Shaggy Man, if you want me to show you the road to Butterfield." She climbed the fence into the ten-acre lot and he followed her, walking slowly and stumbling over the little hillocks in the pasture as if he was thinking of something else and did not notice them.

"My, but you're clumsy!" said the little girl. "Are your feet tired?"

"No, miss; it's my whiskers; they tire very easily in this warm weather," said he. "I wish it would snow, don't you?"

"'Course not, Shaggy Man," replied Dorothy, giving him a severe look. "If it snowed in August it would spoil the corn and the oats and the wheat; and then Uncle Henry wouldn't have any crops; and that would make him poor; and—"

"Never mind," said the shaggy man. "It won't snow, I guess. Is this the lane?"

"Yes," replied Dorothy, climbing another fence; "I'll go as far as the highway with you."

"Thankee, miss; you're very kind for your size, I'm sure," said he gratefully.

"It isn't everyone who knows the road to Butterfield," Dorothy remarked as she tripped along the lane; "but I've driven there many a time with Uncle Henry, and so I b'lieve I could find it blindfolded."

"Don't do that, miss," said the shaggy man earnestly; "you might make a mistake."

"I won't," she answered, laughing. "Here's the highway. Now it's the second—no, the third turn to the left—or else it's the fourth. Let's see. The first one is by the elm tree, and the second is by the gopher holes; and then—"

"Then what?" he inquired, putting his hands in his coat pockets. Toto grabbed a finger and bit it; the shaggy man took his hand out of that pocket quickly, and said "Oh!"

Dorothy did not notice. She was shading her eyes from the sun with her arm, looking anxiously down the road.

"Come on," she commanded. "It's only a little way farther, so I may as well show you."

After a while, they came to the place where five roads branched in different directions; Dorothy pointed to one, and said:

"That's it, Shaggy Man."

"I'm much obliged, miss," he said, and started along another road.

"Not that one!" she cried; "you're going wrong."

He stopped.

"I thought you said that other was the road to Butterfield," said he, running his fingers through his shaggy whiskers in a puzzled way.

"So it is."

"But I don't want to go to Butterfield, miss."

"You don't?"

"Of course not. I wanted you to show me the road, so I shouldn't go there by mistake."

"Oh! Where DO you want to go, then?"

"I'm not particular, miss."

This answer astonished the little girl; and it made her provoked, too, to think she had taken all this trouble for nothing.

"There are a good many roads here," observed the shaggy man, turning slowly around, like a human windmill. "Seems to me a person could go 'most anywhere, from this place."

Dorothy turned around too, and gazed in surprise. There WERE a good many roads; more than she had ever seen before. She tried to count them, knowing there ought to be five, but when she had counted seventeen she grew bewildered and stopped, for the roads were as many as the spokes of a wheel and ran in every direction from the place where they stood; so if she kept on counting she was likely to count some of the roads twice.

"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "There used to be only five roads, highway and all. And now—why, where's the highway, Shaggy Man?"

"Can't say, miss," he responded, sitting down upon the ground as if tired with standing. "Wasn't it here a minute ago?"

"I thought so," she answered, greatly perplexed. "And I saw the gopher holes, too, and the dead stump; but they're not here now. These roads are all strange—and what a lot of them there are! Where do you suppose they all go to?"

"Roads," observed the shaggy man, "don't go anywhere. They stay in one place, so folks can walk on them."

He put his hand in his side-pocket and drew out an apple—quick, before Toto could bite him again. The little dog got his head out this time and said "Bow-wow!" so loudly that it made Dorothy jump.

"O, Toto!" she cried; "where did you come from?"

"I brought him along," said the shaggy man.

"What for?" she asked.

"To guard these apples in my pocket, miss, so no one would steal them."

With one hand the shaggy man held the apple, which he began eating, while with the other hand he pulled Toto out of his pocket and dropped him to the ground. Of course Toto made for Dorothy at once, barking joyfully at his release from the dark pocket. When the child had patted his head lovingly, he sat down before her, his red tongue hanging out one side of his mouth, and looked up into her face with his bright brown eyes, as if asking her what they should do next.

Dorothy didn't know. She looked around her anxiously for some familiar landmark; but everything was strange. Between the branches of the many roads were green meadows and a few shrubs and trees, but she couldn't see anywhere the farm-house from which she had just come, or anything she had ever seen before—except the shaggy man and Toto. Besides this, she had turned around and around so many times trying to find out where she was, that now she couldn't even tell which direction the farm-house ought to be in; and this began to worry her and make her feel anxious.

"I'm 'fraid, Shaggy Man," she said, with a sigh, "that we're lost!"

"That's nothing to be afraid of," he replied, throwing away the core of his apple and beginning to eat another one. "Each of these roads must lead somewhere, or it wouldn't be here. So what does it matter?"

"I want to go home again," she said.

"Well, why don't you?" said he.

"I don't know which road to take."

"That is too bad," he said, shaking his shaggy head gravely. "I wish I could help you; but I can't. I'm a stranger in these parts."

"Seems as if I were, too," she said, sitting down beside him. "It's funny. A few minutes ago I was home, and I just came to show you the way to Butterfield—"

"So I shouldn't make a mistake and go there—"

"And now I'm lost myself and don't know how to get home!"

"Have an apple," suggested the shaggy man, handing her one with pretty red cheeks.

"I'm not hungry," said Dorothy, pushing it away.

"But you may be, to-morrow; then you'll be sorry you didn't eat the apple," said he.

"If I am, I'll eat the apple then," promised Dorothy.

"Perhaps there won't be any apple then," he returned, beginning to eat the red-cheeked one himself. "Dogs sometimes can find their way home better than people," he went on; "perhaps your dog can lead you back to the farm."

"Will you, Toto?" asked Dorothy.

Toto wagged his tail vigorously.

"All right," said the girl; "let's go home."

Toto looked around a minute and dashed up one of the roads.

"Good-bye, Shaggy Man," called Dorothy, and ran after Toto. The little dog pranced briskly along for some distance; when he turned around and looked at his mistress questioningly.

"Oh, don't 'spect ME to tell you anything; I don't know the way," she said. "You'll have to find it yourself."

But Toto couldn't. He wagged his tail, and sneezed, and shook his ears, and trotted back where they had left the shaggy man. From here he started along another road; then came back and tried another; but each time he found the way strange and decided it would not take them to the farm-house. Finally, when Dorothy had begun to tire with chasing after him, Toto sat down panting beside the shaggy man and gave up.