Little Wizard Stories of Oz

By L. Frank Baum

This book contains the "Little Wizard Stories of Oz", a collection of six short stories designed for young children by the writer of the Oz books, L. Frank Baum. These six short tales were originally published in individual booklets, entitled "Oz Books in Miniature", and were later collated into a single edition in 1914. Each original booklet was comprised of twenty-nine pages and was printed in blue ink rather than black. These wonderful stories are perfect for bedtime reading, and are sure to entertain and inspire sleepy listeners with their fantastic tales of Dorothy and her friends in Oz. The stories included in this collection are: “The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger”, “Little Dorothy and Toto”, “Tiktok and the Nome King”, “Ozma and the Little Wizard”, “Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse”, and “The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman”. This book was originally published in 1914, and is being republished now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition. It comes complete with a new prefatory biography of the author.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read Books Ltd.
• Release date: May 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781473374805

L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum (1856–1919) was an American children’s book author, best known for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He wrote thirteen novel sequels, nine other fantasy novels, and several other works (55 novels in total, plus four "lost" novels, 83 short stories, over 200 poems, an unknown number of scripts, and many miscellaneous writings).

Book preview

Little Wizard Stories

of Oz

by

L. Frank Baum

Illustrated by John R. Neill

Copyright © 2013 Read Books Ltd.

This book is copyright and may not be

reproduced or copied in any way without

the express permission of the publisher in writing

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Contents

L. Frank Baum

THE COWARDLY LION AND THE HUNGRY TIGER

LITTLE DOROTHY AND TOTO

TIKTOK AND THE NOME KING

OZMA AND THE LITTLE WIZARD

JACK PUMPKINHEAD AND THE SAWHORSE

THE SCARECROW AND THE TIN WOODMAN

L. Frank Baum

Lyman Frank Baum was born on 15th May 1856 in Chittenango, New York, United States.

He came from a wealthy family, his father, Benjamin Baum, having made a fortune in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. To begin with, Baum was tutored at home with his siblings, but at the age of 12 he was sent to Peskskill Military School to be toughened up. He spent two years there and hated it it so much that his parents let him return home.

Baum started writing at an early age and was lucky enough to have been bought a cheap printing press by his father. He and his brother used this to produce The Rose Lawn Home Journal, of which they published several issues. By the time he was 17, Baum established a second amateur journal, The Stamp Collector, printed an 11-page pamphlet called Baum’s Complete Stamp Dealers’ Directory, and started a stamp dealership with friends. As a young man, Baum also took a keen interest in breeding fancy poultry, establishing the trade journal The Poultry Record in 1880, and later writing his first book on the subject The Book of the Hamburgs: A Brief Treatise upon the Mating, Rearing, and Management of the Different Varieties of Hamburgs.

Baum loved the theatre and wanted to both write and star in stage productions. His father built a theatre for him in Richburg, New York, and Baum set about writing plays and gathering a company to act in them. He wrote and starred in a musical melodrama, titled The Maid of Arran, which included songs based on William Black’s novel A Princess of Thule. This was a modest success and the show went on tour. However, while on the road with the play, the theatre in Richburg caught fire during a production of Baum’s ironically-titled parlor drama, Matches, destroying not only the theatre, but the only known copies of many of Baum’s scripts, including Matches, as well as costumes.

In 1882, Baum married Maud Gage, the daughter of the famous women’s suffrage and feminist activist, Matilda Joslyn Gage. The couple moved to Aberdeen, Dakota Territory, in 1888, and he opened a store there called Baum’s Bazaar. This eventually went bankrupt and Baum turned to editing a local newspaper, The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, where he wrote a column, Our Landlady.

Baum’s first literary success was Mother Goose in Prose (1897), a collection of Mother Goose rhymes written as prose stories and illustrated by Maxfield Parrish. His follow up to this, in partnership with illustrator W. W. Denslow, was a collection of nonsense poetry called Father Goose, His Book. This became the best-selling children’s book of the year. However, it was in 1900 that he and Denslow teamed up to create his best known work The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. This received critical acclaim and gave Baum financial success, being the best-selling children’s book for two years after its publication. Baum continued to write tales of the Land of

Reviews for Little Wizard Stories of Oz

[wonderlandgrrl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I finally found a copy of this...very cute short stories of the classic OZ characters

[aethercowboy · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In L. Frank Baum's Little Wizard Stories of Oz, he's collected a series of short stories, each of which focus on a pair of the more popular characters of Oz. There's Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse, Dorothy and Toto, Ozma and the Wizard, the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. While the stories are not the most shining examples of literary masterpiece, they will give the avid Ozian one more ride through this magic fantasyland.Compared to his other writings, especially the Oz stories, I have to say that this one does not hold as much merit. It could be perhaps because Baum was better suited for the longer form, or some other reason in which the end result is that these stories are not very remarkable, and as such, are not very remarked upon.They are a definite must for any true fan of Oz, and a definite maybe for those who need some nice, short stories to read to that kid, or kid-at-heart, in their life.