Map of Oz Monday - The LOST PRINCESS Map

Last week we examined the 1914 map of the countries surrounding Oz - today we get a look at the last map produced for L. Frank Baum's eyes - and presumably produced to his specifications. This is the black and white map printed on page 75 of the first edition of The Lost Princess of Oz (1917).

Map of events in THE LOST PRINCESS OF OZ - Click to Enlarge

At first glance this map might seem like simply a rehash of the right-hand side of the 1914 map with a few places added in - but there are several very interesting points to be discussed. The map has carefully been copied from the 1914 map, preserving every undulation of the borders, the Ozian river system, and mountains.

A number of new locales specific to Lost Princess have been added: the Merry-Go-Round Mountains, the Great Orchard, Herku, Ugu's castle, Bear Center, and the woods near the Truth Pond. Better delineated is the Yips' mountain in the Yip Country. Also shown is a small house just a bit north of the Yip Country that is probably that of Nellary and Wiljon and another house further north that's probably the home of the Ferryman who can't understand the speech of animals.

Certainly one of the most important aspects of this map is that it preserves Baum's switching of east and west on the compass. To me this just further solidifies my view that the backward compass was a deliberate decision of Baum's. Here Baum had a chance to correct it and did not. Indeed, Baum further pushed the point by explicitly stating that the Yips are "in the far southwestern corner of the Winkie Country" and then providing a little map to show where southwest actually is in Oz.

Further proof that the 1914 compass is no mistake is evidenced by the naming of two sections of the major river on this map. The section on the left of the map (draining into Lake Quad) is labeled East Branch Winkie River. The section on the right-hand side of the map runs from the Quadling County toward the Tin Woodman's castle. It's labeled West Branch Winkie River. This is no compass error - this is explicit naming of geographical points showing that Baum viewed the left side of the Oz maps as east and the right side as west. In the text Baum describes the rivers and terrain in fuller detail:

"At the east [border of the Winkie Country] which part lies nearest the Emerald City, there are beautiful farmhouses and roads, but as you travel west, you first come to a branch of the Winkie River, beyond which there is a rough country where few people live, and some of these are quite unknown to the rest of the world. After passing through this rude section of territory, which no one ever visits, you would come to still another branch of the Winkie River, after crossing which you would find another well-settled part of the Winkie Country extending westward quite to the Deadly Desert . . ."

This careful explanation of existing geographic points proves to me that Baum was looking at a copy of the 1914 map as he wrote. Indeed the 1914 map may have been a crucial plotting tool for Lost Princess. As we've discussed previously, Baum added several countries and locales to the 1914 map that he had not yet written about, such as the Skeezers, Mount Munch, and the Yips. It's possible that Baum had some notion of the plot of Lost Princess back in 1914, allowing him to place the Yip Country near the Truth Pond where the Frogman will bathe, but I think the evidence shows it is far more likely that Baum plotted the book by looking at the map - choosing to begin in one of his unexplored countries (the Yips) and seeing the only nearby landmark was the Truth Pond and he needed to come up with some excuse to make use of it. Either Baum had plotted out a big chunk of Lost Princess much earlier than we've ever suspected or he was studying the map while he plotted the book several years later. Either scenario is quite interesting. 

That's enough for today. Next week we'll take a look at the 1920 map and the whole mess of trouble it has caused! (Click here for the next Oz Map blog post.)