Map of Oz Monday - The Emerald City Part II

Last week we explored the layout and design of the Emerald City in John R. Neill's The Wonder City of Oz (1940) and The Scalawagons of Oz (1941) and the first, albeit partial, map of the Emerald City that we have seen.

In the late 1950s, Oz and Baum scholar Robert R. Pattrick began his own endeavor to map the capitol of America's fairyland. He had published a four part article on Oz geography in The Baum Bugle in 1959 and '60 when he died rather suddenly on August 17, 1960, at the age of thirty-three.

Robert R. Pattrick's gravestone at Forest Lawn in Los Angeles.

After Pattrick's death, his notes and maps were shared with fellow Oz scholar Judy Pike who picked up where Pattrick left off. Pike published their research in the Spring 1972 issue of The Baum Bugle. It is the Pike/Pattrick map we will be discussing below.

Emerald City map by Judy Pike and Robert R. Pattrick (1971)

Before we begin analyzing this map I should point out that Judy Pike has flipped Neill's partial map to make it  match directions and orientation with the Oz Club maps (which we haven't discussed yet). Apparently, Pattrick had used the Neill/Thompson "Munchkins on the left and in the west" orientation. I don't know if Pattrick actually preferred the Neill/Thompson orientation, but it makes sense that he would have used it while researching this map and working his way through Neill's books looking for details in the text.

I do think this concentric beltway/spokes design is very appealing. The map above shows only the major streets. Each of the sixteen "segments" or "blocks" in the map is actually interlaced with winding and twisting streets.

Pattrick and Pike also went through the Baum and Thompson books and attempted to work in every textual detail they could find into Neill's EC design.

This map shows four gates to the Emerald City, one facing each of the four countries of Oz, as established by Baum in The Patchwork Girl of Oz on page 184. The map also shows: Unk Nunkie's cottage just outside the Munchkin gate;  the location of Notta Bit More's circus tent in the far suburbs; the public square (where Ozma's Road to Oz birthday festivities took place) is on the south side of the palace. The Love Magnet is hanging above the South Gate, and Pike has added in many textual locations from the Neill Oz books.

Judy Pike seems to have gotten confused about Jack Pumpkinhead's "Pumpkin Park." She has moved it from its textually explicit location north of the Emerald City and repositioned it to the west having drawn in a wedge of Winkie Country to accommodate it. I suspect Pike believed she was restoring Jack's gigantic hollowed-out pumpkin home to its proper Winkie location. But, in fact, Jack's "Pumpkin Park" location is his "second" home where he stays in the old Ozoplane when he wants to be closer to the Emerald City.

One problem I have with this map and this research is that Pike is not clear about what detail is explicitly based on textual evidence and what detail Robert R. Pattrick seems to have invented.

"Pattrick discovered that four main streets in the city connect the four gates to the palace. They are Celery Street (Winkie Gate), Custard Court (Quadling Gate), Pumpkin Place (Munchkin Gate), and Strawberry Street (Gillikin Gate). Each, as researched by Pattrick in the Neill books, has certain extensions into the countryside, and these extensions are noted on my map."

Personally I'd like the references. From my admittedly hasty look through the Neill books I can not find that all four streets are named and that all four road extensions are named. It's possible I missed them. It is also possible that those details are in Neill's original manuscript for The Wonder City of Oz (the published book is heavily rewritten by a staff writer) or possibly from Neill's original manuscript for The Runaway in Oz, both of which Pattrick had access to. Anyway, I haven't had time to plow through the three books and two manuscripts. If any of my readers want to post text references in the comments section of this post I'd be delighted!

Pike does imply later that all these streets are mentioned in the text as she deliberately leaves off a few names Pattrick did invent, such as calling the road he adds around the palace Tangerine Terrace.

Pike's article is generally very solid and she has worked meticulously through Neill's books to place some of the locations such as Pancake Park:

"Although Pattrick always located this park on his maps between Strawberry Street and Doughnut Drive, he enlarged and shrank it in his various map versions. He was trying, I think, to reconcile some of the facts given in the Neill books, primarily the statement that as Sir Hokus comes into the city from Pumpkin Park, he takes a shortcut through Pancake Park to the Castle. In addition, I found that one must be able to look down Pudding Place and see the park, and that, when within the park boundaries, he should be able to see the sun rise. As I've placed Pumpkin Park in the West, Sir Hokus would enter on Celery Street. By locating Pancake Park straddling Celery Street and Pudding Place and fairly close to the walls of the Castle, one may reconcile the facts into an acceptable location. In spite of the high Castle Wall, the sun's rays at daybreak might well reach into the park at the Pudding Place boundary."

I will try to add a PDF version of the full article when I have a few minutes. It's very detailed and quite good.

Next week, we'll explore some additional ways Neill's Emerald City design and these maps impacted more recent Ozian iconography.

Click here for the next Oz map blog post.