White Edition Wednesday - WIZARD

Last week we got an overview of the ever-popular "white editions." Today we begin our look at the books one at a time - beginning, of course, with The Wizard of Oz. This will be the most complicated and lengthiest of these blogs, as this title has more variants and Dick Martin's modifications were much more extreme. The "white edition" shown above was published in 1965. But two other Reilly & Lee editions of Wizard preceded it, and we must pay our respects to them as well.

Martin's jacket for the 1960 Ulrey WIZARD.

The first Reilly & Lee edition of Wizard was published in 1956 and featured new illustrations by cartoonist Dale Ulrey. Her pictures were attractive and were printed in black and red in the early printings. In 1960, soon after Dick Martin started his long association with Reilly & Lee, he drew a new dust jacket design for the Ulrey Wizard. For this 1960 printing, the text illustration colors were modified to help tell the story - just like W. W. Denslow had done in the original 1900 printing. Blue in the Munchkin Country, red in the Poppy Field, green in the Emerald City, etc. I am fairly certain this ink color change to the Ulrey illustrations was done at Dick Martin's urging. I doubt anyone at Reilly & Lee even knew of Denslow's original color scheme. Dick was already a major Baum and Denslow scholar, and tweaking the colors like this is exactly the sort of thing he would have done. I also suspect Dick planted the idea that they needed a totally new edition of Wizard featuring the original Denslow illustrations. And in 1964 a new Denslow illustrated edition was published.

1964 "Poster Cover" edition of THE WIZARD OF OZ

For this first printing of the Denslow edition, Dick Martin prepared a lovely cover based on one of the original advertising posters for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz from 1900. Dick also adapted Denslow's 1903 "Poppy Field" endpaper design for the book.

Endpapers of the 1964 Reilly & Lee "Poster Cover" edition of WIZARD

If you compare these to the original 1903 endpapers, which were printed in red and green, you will notice Dick has redrawn the image and extended it at the bottom by almost an inch to accommodate the Reilly & Lee Oz book proportions. The book retained the afterword by Edward Wagenknecht from the 1956 Ulrey edition and got a new foreword which may have been written by Dick Martin:

"W. W. Denslow, the illustrator, was the perfect collaborator for L. Frank Baum. His pictures could no more be separated from the text than Gilbert's words could be taken from Sullivan's music. The same spirit of fun, surprise and mystery held them both in a rare and happy partnership. This sparkling new edition contains all the best of Denslow's illustrations - including many which have not appeared since the original edition of 1900, and several of which have never before been published."

Looking at the chronology of events, it seems likely that it was Reilly & Lee's pleasure in seeing this spiffy new edition that prompted them to ask Dick to redesign all of the Oz books in a new modern format. Alas, he had given this 1964 edition a very unique cover - a style that would be hard to replicate on thirteen additional Baum titles. So Dick copied the style he'd used on Merry Go Round in Oz for the post-Wizard books, and when Wizard needed to be reprinted in 1965 he designed the new "white edition" cover we all know, as seen at the top of this blog post, to replace the "poster edition."

For the most part the interior of the "white edition" is identical to the earlier 1964 "poster edition." But there were a few changes. The illustration color scheme was improved. In the 1964 "poster edition," the first two 32-page gatherings had blue text illustrations. In the 1965 "white edition," the first 16-page gathering has illustrations printed in gray, better suiting the story. The "white edition's" final gathering of 16 pages also changed to illustrations printed in gray and added eight more pages to the end of the book. To fill these extra pages Dick cut the three-page ad [see comments] listing all forty Oz books as well as two illustrations that appeared in the "poster edition." He replaced them with a multi-page ad - featuring the plot synopses of the Baum Oz books from Who's Who in Oz - plus two additional illustrations. Many copies of the "white edition" Wizard have the Kansas illustrations printed in chocolatey brown rather than gray. The brown can be seen in the illustration of Uncle Henry sitting on the stoop further down this blog.

Before we get into looking at how Dick Martin adapted the Denslow illustrations it is well to point out one feature I only recently noticed. The typography of the Denslow edition is that of the Dale Ulrey edition. Dick Martin simply replaced her illustrations with adapted Denslow illustrations

Note that the text, page numbers, and running titles are identical in both editions. Martin has simply adapted two of Denslow's images to replace those of Ulrey. He also deleted the chapter number. In the foreword quoted above it mentions that this edition includes several illustrations which "have never before been published." That refers to these two images:

The image at left was discovered in a 1954 Metropolitan Life Insurance advertisement. In 1964 Dick still believed this was an unknown Denslow illustration. It isn't. It dates from 1954. The Lion (above right) is from Denslow's 1905 "Scarecrow and Tin Man at the Flower Festival in California" comic page.

It must be pointed out that while I am calling these Denslow illustrations, most of them have been heavily adapted and some have been completely redrawn by Dick Martin. He did this both to simplify Denslow's elaborate two color design and to create images the right shape to fit the Ulrey layout. Let's take a look at some examples:

Original Denslow on left - Dick Martin on right. CLICK TO ENLARGE

Above, you can see how Dick modified Denslow's original illustration to serve as a stand-alone full-page drawing. I like that he preserved Denslow's aesthetics by allowing the sunflower to break through the frame. Yet once one realizes these "white edition" images are Dick Martin tracings it's easy to spot his work. In the right hand picture, the simple, cartoony silhouette of Aunt Em doing dishes is much more Martin than Denslow.

Below are several examples of the clever way Dick cobbled together different Denslow illustrations to meet the needs of fitting into the Ulrey edition typesetting.

Original Denslow on left - Dick Martin on right. CLICK TO ENLARGE

You can see that Dick kept the initial S to start the chapter, but he needed to remove the Munchkin hat and some of the wildflowers. However, the raised position of the S created an empty space above the type, so he replaced the original seated Dorothy with a standing Dorothy pulled from the illustration below.

Dick reused the Toto from this picture on the chapter title below. Note, too, that Dick replaced almost all of Denslow's solid blocks of color with zip-a-tone line patterns. The line pattern was easier to print reliably and probably added a subtly modern feel to the book. 

Original Denslow on left - Dick Martin on right. CLICK TO ENLARGE

Many of Denslow's color plate drawings were reproduced fairly accurately, though printed in a single color. However, the other illustrations were almost all Dick Martin tracings. Sometimes Dick's tracings were quite close to Denslow's original lines. At other times Dick's lines couldn't help but display his own style. And a few times Dick made deliberate changes to Denslow's linework.

W. W. Denslow above - Dick Martin below.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC ODDITIES
This section will be modified as more information on variants comes in

While the 1964 printing of the "poster edition" of Wizard had "poppy field" endpapers, it is probable the earliest printings of the "white edition" also have "poppy field" endpapers. But the vast majority of Wizard "white editions" I have seen have the Road to Oz "crowd of Ozian celebrities" endpapers. (These endpapers were also used in the rest of the "white edition" Oz books.) I'd be most curious to hear what endpapers are in your copies of the Wizard "white edition." If you know when you bought your copy or it has a presentation date, that can be useful information, too. The earliest printings have the front and back cover properly centered. The later printings (probably from the mid-late 1970s) used smaller boards, 6" wide as opposed to the 6 3/8" inches of the earlier printings, as shown below.

Note how the cover on the right is off-center due to the smaller boards.

I have several copies of this book here in the Tiger Den - one of which seems somewhat atypical. I bought it new in 1979 at F. A. O. Schwartz when I was a kid. It has the smaller 6" boards, so the cover doesn't wrap well, but it does have the "poppy field" endpapers printed in black and red and the Kansas illustrations are printed in gray. The smaller board size and known purchase date indicate this is a later printing. So clearly the gray Kansas illustrations and "poppy" endpapers do not automatically indicate an early printing date.

Examples of both the gray and chocolate brown ink colors.

So I'd be most curious if any of you can share info on whether the Kansas scenes in your copy are gray or brown, and if you have Road endpapers or "poppy" endpapers. Also if there are ads in the front or back of the book for either 14 or 40 Oz books. You can leave info in the comments section.

As I mentioned last week twelve of the fourteen "white editions" were also available in paperback form through Rand McNally. Their paperback Wizard printed all of the illustrations in black and white.

That's it for today - next week we'll tackle The Land of Oz!