One one side, the bottom of this hill just touches the Deadly Sandy Desert that separates the Fairyland of Oz from all the rest of the world, but on the other side, the hill touches the beautiful, fertile Country of the Munchkins.

On the east edge of the Land of Oz, in the Munchkin Country, is a big, tall hill called Mount Munch. However, The Magic of Oz is really more strange and unusual than anything I have read or heard about on our side of The Great Sandy Desert which shuts us off from The Land of Oz, even during the past exciting years, so I hope it will appeal to your love of novelty.Ī long and confining illness has prevented my answering all the good letters sent me-unless stamps were enclosed-but from now on I hope to be able to give prompt attention to each and every letter with which my readers favor me.Īssuring you that my love for you has never faltered and hoping the Oz Books will continue to give you pleasure as long as I am able to write them, I am

Frank Baum The Magic of Oz American%20Classic%20BW.jpg top10-world.jpg Fantastica%20Logo.jpgĬuriously enough, in the events which have taken place in the last few years in our great outside world, we may find incidents so marvelous and inspiring that I cannot hope to equal them with stories of The Land of Oz.

If this is a 'lesser' story, it's only because it's a bit more familiar as a writer, he's clearly firing on all cylinders and perhaps, just before his death, at the peak of his abilities. It's still not the most memorable book in the series, but it's better than I'd ever given it credit for, and more interesting than the mid-series books where Baum was clearly focusing elsewhere. Magic is far more.well, normal.but there are still surprises: an unhappy, disgruntled protagonist an invasion that peters out mid-book and a generally melancholy tone for what's supposedly a book about a party. It's easy to dismiss as one of Baum's last four Oz stories because the other three are so startling in what they're doing differently, plot-wise Lost Princess is a roadshow, with appearances from almost every one of Baum's protagonists, a peculiarly spiritual ending Tin Woodman is an existential novel with moments of extreme dissonance Glinda is female-oriented proto-science fiction. This has never been one of my favorite Baum Oz books, but on my first re-read as an adult, I found it surprisingly enjoyable.

The magic of oz 1919