Did you know that 'The Wizard of Oz' is over one-hundred years old? I don't mean the movie, I mean the book by L. Frank Baum. It was published in 1900, and at 40,000 words is about half the length of 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone' and about one-fifth the length of 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.' The entire Oz series was the Harry Potter of its day, with another 13 books published after the first one. And you thought J.K. Rowling invented that kind of stuff...
The Annotated Wizard of Oz edited by Michael Patrick Hearn
This is the Centennial Edition, published in 2000, which includes an extensive preface and biography of Mr. Baum and W.W. Denslow (the amazing illustrator), a timeline of their efforts to publish the book, and the amazing success that followed, which included stage plays and silent films, all decades before the 1939 film with Judy Garland.
The annotations are the extensive notes accompanying each page from the original printing, providing cultural details, thoughts from Mr. Baum or Mr. Denslow, and references to the entire Oz ouvre, all 14 books.
If you wanted to create a blockbuster kids-book franchise that also appeals to adults, this is the place to start.
Quote: (from the annotations) 'That a man of cold, hollow metal should desire a soft and tender heart is another case of whimsical irony in the story. The Tin Woodsman embodies the Romantic rebellion in the Industrial Age. He cannot love because he has been turned into a machine himself; only by getting back in touch with that human part of him he has lost, his heart, can he be whole again.'
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