When his next two fantasy novels, The Sea Fairies (1911) and Sky Island (1912), yielded underwhelming sales, Baum saw the writing on the wall. But Baum had begun to feel creatively confined by the expectation of an annual Oz book, and tried to finish the series with The Emerald City of Oz (1910), which ended with Dorothy, Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and Toto living happily in fairyland.Īs intent as Baum was on telling new kinds of stories, however, he had underestimated the determination of his child readers. The Wizard reappeared in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908), and The Road to Oz (1909) included Toto’s long-awaited return. As delighted as children were to read more about the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, they bemoaned the absence of Dorothy, whom Baum brought back in Ozma of Oz (1907), one of the most popular books in the series. It was the first book put out by the new firm of Reilly & Britton, which had formed for the express purpose of publishing the first sequel to The Wizard of Oz. Baum and Denslow had parted ways due to creative differences, and the new novel was illustrated by the young artist John R. The rest is history The Wizard of Oz has never been out of print and has sold untold millions of copies.īaum returned to Oz in 1904 with The Marvelous Land of Oz.

t will indeed be strange if there be a normal child who will not enjoy the story.” Baum’s text and the fanciful illustrations of W. The story has humor and here and there stray bits of philosophy that will be a moving power on the child mind and will furnish fields of study and investigation for the future students and professors of psychology…. The New York Times deemed it “ingeniously woven out of commonplace material…. Hill Company, was an instant hit, becoming the bestselling children’s book of the year. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), published by the George M. Well before the days of international media conglomerates and technologically accelerated word-of-mouth, the Oz books were the Harry Potter series of their time. It all began with a children’s novel published by an obscure Chicago outfit at the dawn of a new century.

Wizard of oz series books