The Tin Woodman of Oz (Annotated)

By L. Frank Baum and Muhammad Humza

The Tin Man and the Scarecrow are regaling each other with tales of past adventures in the Tin Man's castle in the Winkie Country when a Gillikin boy named Woot wanders into their presence. After he is fed and rested (which the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, not being of blood and flesh, do not need), Woot asks the Tin Man how he became made of tin. The Tin Man tells Woot the story of how he had once been a flesh-and-blood woodman in love with a maiden named Nimmie Aimee. Woot suggests that since the Tin Man...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Muhammad Humza
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9791221346695

L. Frank Baum

L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) was an American author of children’s literature and pioneer of fantasy fiction. He demonstrated an active imagination and a skill for writing from a young age, encouraged by his father who bought him the printing press with which he began to publish several journals. Although he had a lifelong passion for theater, Baum found success with his novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), a self-described “modernized fairy tale” that led to thirteen sequels, inspired several stage and radio adaptations, and eventually, in 1939, was immortalized in the classic film starring Judy Garland.

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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.

Part 1

To My Readers

I KNOW THAT SOME OF you have been waiting for this story of the Tin

Woodman, because many of my correspondents have asked me, time and

again what ever became of the pretty Munchkin girl whom Nick Chopper

was engaged to marry before the Wicked Witch enchanted his axe and he

traded his flesh for tin. I, too, have wondered what became of her, but until

Woot the Wanderer interested himself in the matter the Tin Woodman knew

no more than we did. However, he found her, after many thrilling

adventures, as you will discover when you have read this story.

I am delighted at the continued interest of both young and old in the Oz

stories. A learned college professor recently wrote me to ask: "For readers

of what age are your books intended?" It puzzled me to answer that

properly, until I had looked over some of the letters I have received. One

says: "I'm a little boy 5 years old, and I Just love your Oz stories. My sister,

who is writing this for me, reads me the Oz books, but I wish I could read

them myself. Another letter says: I'm a great girl 13 years old, so you'll be

surprised when I tell you I am not too old yet for the Oz stories." Here's

another letter: "Since I was a young girl I've never missed getting a Baum

book for Christmas. I'm married, now, but am as eager to get and read the

Oz stories as ever. And still another writes: My good wife and I, both

more than 70 years of age, believe that we find more real enjoyment in your

Oz books than in any other books we read." Considering these statements, I

wrote the college professor that my books are intended for all those whose

hearts are young, no matter what their ages may be.

I think I am justified in promising that there will be some astonishing

revelations about The Magic of Oz in my book for 1919. Always your

loving and grateful friend,

L. FRANK BAUM.

Royal Historian of Oz.

OZCOT

at HOLLYWOOD in CALIFORNIA

1918.

Part 2

The Tin Woodman of Oz

Chapter 1

Woot the Wanderer

The Tin Woodman sat on his glittering tin throne in the handsome tin hall of

his splendid tin castle in the Winkie Country of the Land of Oz. Beside him,

in a chair of woven straw, sat his best friend, the Scarecrow of Oz. At times

they spoke to one another of curious things they had seen and strange

adventures they  had known since first they two had met and become

comrades. But at times they were silent, for these things had been talked

over many times between them, and they found themselves contented in

merely being together, speaking now and then a brief sentence to prove they

were wide awake and attentive. But then, these two quaint persons never

slept. Why should they sleep, when they never tired?

And now, as the brilliant sun sank low over the Winkie Country of Oz,

tinting the glistening tin towers and tin minarets of the tin castle with

glorious sunset hues, there approached along a winding pathway Woot the

Wanderer, who met at the castle entrance a Winkie servant.

The servants of the Tin Woodman all wore tin helmets and tin

breastplates and uniforms covered with tiny tin discs sewed closely together

on silver cloth, so that their bodies sparkled as beautifully as  did the tin

castle — and almost as beautifully as did the Tin Woodman himself.

Woot the Wanderer looked at the man servant —all bright and glittering

— and at the magnificent castle — all bright and glittering — and as he

looked his eyes grew big with wonder. For Woot was not very big and not

very old and, wanderer though he was, this proved the most gorgeous sight

that had ever met his boyish gaze.

Who lives here? he asked.

The Emperor of the Winkies, who is the famous Tin Woodman of Oz,

replied the servant, who had been trained to treat all strangers with courtesy.

A Tin Woodman? How queer! exclaimed the little wanderer.

Well, perhaps our Emperor is queer, admitted the servant; "but he is a

kind master and as honest and true as good tin can make him; so we, who

gladly serve him, are apt to forget that he is not like other people."

May I see him? asked Woot the Wanderer, after a moment's thought.

If it please you to wait a moment, I will go and ask him, said the

servant, and then he went into the hall where the Tin Woodman sat with his

friend the Scarecrow. Both were glad to learn that a stranger had arrived at

the castle, for this would give them something new to talk about, so the

servant was asked to admit the boy at once.

By the time Woot the Wanderer had passed through the grand corridors

— all lined with ornamental tin — and under stately tin archways and

through the many tin rooms all set with beautiful tin furniture, his eyes had

grown bigger than ever and his whole little body thrilled with amazement.

But, astonished though he was, he was able to make a polite bow before the

throne and to say in a respectful voice: "I salute your Illustrious Majesty

and offer you my humble services."

Very good! answered the Tin Woodman in his accustomed cheerful

manner. Tell me who you are, and whence you come.

I am known as Woot the Wanderer, answered the boy, "and I have

come, through many travels and by roundabout ways, from my former

home in a far corner of the Gillikin Country of Oz."

To wander from one's home, remarked the Scarecrow, "is to encounter

dangers and hardships, especially if one is made of meat and bone. Had you

no friends in that corner of the Gillikin Country? Was it not homelike and

comfortable?"

To hear a man stuffed with straw speak, and speak so well, quite startled

Woot, and perhaps he stared a bit rudely at the Scarecrow. But after a

moment he replied:

"I had home and friends, your Honorable Strawness, but they  were so

quiet and happy and comfortable that I found them dismally stupid. Nothing

in that corner of Oz interested me, but I believed that in other parts of the

country I would find strange people and see new sights, and so I set out

upon my wandering journey. I have been a wanderer for nearly a full year,

and now my wanderings have brought me to this splendid castle."

I suppose, said the Tin Woodman, "that in this year you have seen so

much that you have become very wise."

No, replied Woot, thoughtfully, "I am not at all wise, I