Cheese!

In 1980 I won the Munchkin Convention's Oz quiz. The quiz had been prepared by John Bell. Both of us were in our mid-teens. This was the first time I won a convention quiz and I was eagerly looking forward to the glory that came attached to such a win. And I had much anticipation for the Ozzy prize that was sure to come with it.

At my first Oz convention a few years earlier, the quiz prize had been a first edition of The Giant Horse of Oz, and I had gotten it into my head that quiz prizes should be substantive. Well, my prize for winning the Munchkin Quiz was a small cheese board, hand-made by John Bell himself. In all likelihood it had been made in John's high school "wood shop" class. It came with this "Certificate of Authenticity."

At the time, I was a bit disappointed in the little cheese board. Perhaps, John, too, thought it was a trifle too little as he augmented the cheese board with an inexpensive Whitman edition of The Wizard of Oz, which he had autographed by Margaret Hamilton, who was the special guest of the Munchkin Convention.

Margaret Hamilton's "Congratulations!" on winning the quiz.

Now, in hindsight a copy of The Wizard of Oz signed by the Wicked Witch of the West sounds very nice, but at the time she was in the same room with me and I'd just had lunch with her and had her sign several other books I'd brought with me.

But over the years this once disappointingly cheesy prize has come to mean much more to me than some book or Ozian collectible would have. John and I are still friends and blogging colleagues. (John writes the Oz and Ends blog as well as the American Revolution blog Boston 1775.) And now, thirty-five years later, I really enjoy knowing that John made that stupid little cheese board for me back when we were both teenagers. And you know, for decades now it's actually been really useful for serving cheese!

[Update] You can read John's version of the story by clicking here!

Dick Martin and Me

Dick Martin at 1980 Ozmapolitan Con auction.

In the late 1970s I was in a sort of teenage overdrive to build up my Oz collection. And with a desire to feel important, perhaps, I began a concerted effort to get most any book that I could autographed by its author or illustrator. Whether this compulsion to get these books autographed was simply about improving my collection, or was a chance to feel special (or was it grown up?) it allowed me to make contact with the likes of Russell MacFall, Margaret Hamilton, Edward Wagenknecht, and Philip José Farmer among others - not to mention Rachel Cosgrove and Eloise Jarvis McGraw.

I had assumed I would meet Dick Martin when I went to my first Oz convention, Winkies 1977, but I found that Dick was not in attendance. He only rarely traveled to Winkies. But in 1979 I finally got a copy of Dick’s Visitors from Oz and sent him a fan letter asking if I might send him my copy of Visitors to get it autographed. A few days later I got a postcard in the mail!

Not only was it a postcard from an actual “Royal Illustrator,” but it was an Ozzy postcard. Dick gave a very friendly go ahead to sending my copy of Visitors to him. A week or so later it arrived back to me, all nicely signed with an Ozzy inscription and a little drawing of a moon. 

Inscription by Dick Martin in THE VISITORS FROM OZ.

As an extra little present, Dick also included one of the very rare Reilly & Lee advertising Gumps for me! We exchanged letters, I told him about my collection, he told me about his Oz projects. Not only was he in the midst of illustrating the new McGraw Oz book, The Forbidden Fountain of Oz, but he was also just starting his series of cut-and assemble Oz activity books for Dover. From 1979 through the mid-1980s Dick was in a kind of Oz illustrating renaissance.

When I asked if he ever sold any of his original art, he wrote that it was all gone, as he’d given it away to friends. A few months into our correspondence I found a box of unused greeting cards at Goodwill—the cards featured his little “DM” as a signature. I sent him one and he wrote back confirming it was his work. He also included several other examples of his greeting cards, all from the mid-1950s.

We finally met at the 1980 Ozmapolitan Convention. He was cordial but very quiet and reserved. But after dinner on Friday evening before the programming began, Dick came over to me and asked me to come up to his room. I must admit I tensed a bit. Even though in 1980 I was not out (even to myself) I somehow knew that Dick was gay. Perhaps it was his rakish photo in The Oz Scrapbook? Perhaps it was because he reminded me of Tony Randall in a sort of dapper way? We went up to his room and he shut the door. He pulled an envelope from his suitcase and from it all of the original art from The Forbidden Fountain of Oz spilled onto his bed. He said: “Pick one you like—I’m letting you have first choice!”

Original drawing by Dick Martin for THE FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN OF OZ (1980).

I chose the drawing above. Then he asked me to please not tell anyone at the convention about the gift or they’d all be bothering him. I thanked him. Before we left his room he said, “I often have a few quiet friends up to my room to talk and have a drink after the programming is over. If you’d like to join us, you would be most welcome.”

I did go to Dick’s room for a while that night and several other nights at later Ozmapolitan Conventions, too. Dick was very quiet at his parties. He was always the center of attention, drinking a good deal, telling complicated jokes, performing magic tricks; he was quite simply holding court!

I’m still unsure why he pulled me into his inner circle so quickly - perhaps he just saw some of himself in a quiet (eventually-gonna-be-gay) teenage boy Oz collector. Who knows? In any event he made me feel very special at my first Ozmapolitan Convention.

Dick Martin and Jean Brockway having breakfast at Ozmapolitan Con 1985.

White Rats and Genealogy

It's certainly been a while since I wrote an Oz blog! Now that I'm retired as "Mr. Winkie Convention" perhaps I'll be able to do this blogging thing a trifle more frequently.

Today, I'm sharing a recent acquisition to the Tiger Den - a lovely copy of Rachel Cosgrove's 1963 novel, Not For Glory.

It's actually a pretty decent book - perhaps most interesting to an Oz fan for its biographical insight into the life of its author. This "career" novel is set in a pharmaceutical lab. And Rachel Cosgrove herself had been trained as a biologist and worked for many years in a pharmaceutical lab before she turned to writing full-time. And main character, Faye Viccars, works a lot with white rats who are obviously cousins of beloved Oz rat, Percy.

In addition to being a "career" novel the book is also a mystery, which was one of Rachel's favorite types of tale to tell. And this book came with a small mystery of its own!

The book is actually a presentation copy inscribed by Cosgrove: "To Aunt Linnie and Uncle Chester."

Laid inside the book was a typed letter from Rachel to the apparent relatives dated February 26, 1965. It said, "Dear Aunt Linnie - I thought that you and Uncle Chester might enjoy my latest book. Love, Rachel"

Having known Rachel quite well, and being curious who the book had belonged to, I emailed Cosgrove's son and asked him about Aunt Linnie and Uncle Chester. He didn't recognize their names, but suggested they were probably from the Cosgrove side of the family. Somehow, the fact that he didn't know who these relatives were made me even more curious! What to do?

Go to Ancestry.com and poke around the Cosgrove family tree! Fairly quickly Eric Shanower and I found Linnie and Chester!

Linnie L. Brake was born in 1877. She was the sister of Rachel's mother, Martha P.  Brake, thus Rachel's true Aunt.  Linnie married Chester Malone Cunningham (1870-1965). I don't know if Uncle Chester ever got a chance to read Not for Glory. The book was sent to him in February of 1965 and he died that June at the age of 95.

Aunt Linnie had a good deal more time to read her niece's novel as she lived until 1977 when she died at age 100 - two month's shy of her 101st birthday.

Now perhaps this quest for information has been a bit of a detour away from the yellow brick road, but oddly I found it quite fascinating to be able to track down so much information on that brief moment in 1965 when a Royal Historian of Oz sent her latest book to a very elderly Aunt and Uncle she cared about. As Percy the white rat might say, "Neato, kid!"

The Earth Moved!

I just sat down and read  the newly released Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz from Marvel Comics. Eric Shanower and Skottie Young have made one of their best efforts yet. I'd read a lot of it as it was being serialized but really prefer to wait for the collection to come out.

I enjoyed "seeing" so much of the Mangaboo country - I'd never imagined the gang walking thru the air in low-gravity the whole time they are there. I also found I liked Zeb a lot more than I do in the original - and Eureka is just the best!

The graphic novel is actually a much stronger book than Baum's original as Eric has Dorothy explain how Ozma keeps watch over her via the Magic Picture and that if the gang can just stay alive until Friday at 2:00 PM they'll be OK. With this ticking clock started it adds suspense and deflects from the Deus ex machina quality of Baum's original.

I am also glad to report that we have copies in stock at our on-line store! Why not come by one today! If you order from us your book will be autographed by Eric Shanower and he'll even do a little Oz sketch in it for you!During checkout just let us know how you'd like the book signed in the "Special Instructions" field.

Click here to order

So come order a copy for yourself and maybe even pick one up for a friend! We have copies of Marvel's Wonderful Wizard, Marvelous Land and Ozma of Oz as well as all our usual Oz and Baum titles.

Looking for Work in 1901

Here in the Tiger Den there is a fair amount of material by and about Fanny Y. Cory, illustrator of L. Frank Baum's 1901 sci-fi novel The Master Key and Baum's 1903 fairytale The Enchanted Island of Yew.

Cory was also a newspaper cartoonist whose work included the one-panel Sonny Sayings, featuring the adventures of a cloyingly sweet toddler named Sonny. But (outside of Oz circles) Cory is perhaps best remembered for her 1930s comic strip Little Miss Muffet - a close cousin of Little Orphan Annie.

I have one piece of original Fanny Cory artwork which I've blogged about here. But I recently acquired a nice little signed letter from Cory written in 1901, the year she illustrated The Master Key.

I find it especially interesting to see this behind-the-scenes peek at Cory looking for work. The letter is to the editors of some unspecified children's page, discussing a project she's been given for "New Year."  In the postscript she asks why she did not receive the alphabet. I'm not sure if she's asking why she hasn't received a certain book or why she did not get a certain job.

It's a neat little letter. Tucked into my copy of Master Key or Enchanted Island of Yew it will likely be the closest I'll get to a Cory inscribed copy.

White Edition Wednesday - LOST PRINCESS

In our last installment we sailed the seas with Rinkitink in Oz so this week we must seek out The Lost Princess of Oz.

Dick Martin added lots of little extras to Lost Princess and he pulled them from quite a variety of places so we have a lot to look at beginning with the cover.

The front cover is based on the original cover design by John R. Neill from 1917 (seen at left). Dick has redrawn it a bit, simplifying the Frogman and adjusting the byline lettering. The spine illustration is taken from the spine of the dust jacket of the first edition of The Scarecrow of Oz - which was, incidentally, the first Oz book dust jacket to have a spine vignette printed in full color (seen below right).

Excuse this slight digression, but this reminded me of a famous Dick Martin story: One day Jim Haff (long time Oz Club member and cartographer of the Oz Club's Maps of Oz) was at Dick Martin's home. Jim and Dick were sitting around discussing some obscure Ozian point and Jim asked Dick if he could see a copy of The Scarecrow of Oz to help prove some odd point.

Dick handed Jim a first printing of the book in an immaculate first-state dust jacket. Jim said, "Not that one! I can't look anything up in THAT copy! I just want to see your reading copy."

 "Sorry," said Dick, "that is my reading copy. It's the only copy of the book I own."

Dick Martin had a very fine collection.

The back cover is based one of the original Lost Princess color plates - the one showing the odd people of Thi (seen below). Dick rather radically adapted it, cutting out several of the characters, including the cute baby Thist. The faces and character of the two he kept are quite different from Neill's original. Dick didn't usually alter Neill artwork this heavily.

Let's open up the book and see what changes Dick made to the interior. For the "Famous Oz Book" ad Dick adapted Neill's cover drawing from one of the Little Wizard Series books, Ozma and the Little Wizard (1913), shown below.

And on page four Dick prepared a new drawing of the little brown bear, Corporal Waddle, adapted from another of the original Lost Princess color plates.

Left to Right: Corporal Waddle in 1917 and Corporal Waddle in 1964.

When I was a kid, the most exciting thing to me about this edition of Lost Princess was the Map of the Land of Oz that Dick added to the fore-matter. This was the first Oz map I ever saw.

Map of the Land of Oz from the "white edition" of LOST PRINCESS

I could go on and on about this map, but will save it for our new blog series, Maps of Oz Monday, which will begin in a month or so. Last week I showed you one of the two maps that Reilly & Lee issued in 1968 to publicize the "white editions." Here's the other one adapted from the map above.

1968 Map of the Land of Oz published by Reilly & Lee.

When Dick added the Oz map to Lost Princess he needed to keep it on a spread, so he added four pages to the front matter of the book. The middle spread was, of course, the Oz map. But to fill the other two pages Dick adapted the endpapers of the first edition of Patchwork Girl showing the Tin Woodman riding the Hungry Tiger and the Scarecrow riding the Cowardly Lion.

Dick Martin's adaptation for pages 13 and 16 of LOST PRINCESS.

Below you can see the image as it appeared in the first edition of Patchwork Girl. I'm not sure why Dick used the Tin Woodman picture first - but perhaps he liked the character to be looking into the book instead of out toward the margin.

Endpapers for the first edition of PATCHWORK GIRL

This image was also used in the Little Wizard series (see below). But based on the shadows under the animals, Dick seems to have used the Patchwork Girl version.

Neill's simplified version from LITTLE WIZARD STORIES OF OZ.

One odd pagination note - the first page of text begins on page 17 just like the original edition. But there are  18 pages of fore-matter before that first page of text. Not a big deal - but I noticed the discrepancy when I was checking the page numbers of the newly added Scarecrow and Tin Woodman images.

One final bit to share - Lost Princess was dedicated to L. Frank Baum's granddaughter, Ozma Baum. In 1996 Ozma and Eric and I were all participating in an Oz convention in Louisville, Kentucky, and I brought along my very first copy of Lost Princess, the "white edition," and asked Ozma to sign it for me. She very kindly did so.

It's not every day that you get an Oz book autographed by Ozma herself!

That's it for this week. Next week we'll be sliding some oil to The Tin Woodman of Oz.

That's My Shaggy Man!

One of my favorite Oz acquisitions of 2011 was this very nice first edition copy of The Shaggy Man of Oz in a rather nice first dust jacket.

I've generally enjoyed the Snow Oz books. They don't violate Baum's Oz as much as Thompson's often do. I've also developed a fondness for Snow because he was gay in a time when it was not so easy to be so. I wish someone had done an in-depth interview with him, or an oral-history of sorts (though that really wasn't being done much back then). Snow did leave his personal papers to Fred Meyer - but Fred proceeded to destroy all of Snow's personal letters and documents not of an Ozzy nature. It's a great shame. Snow's private papers might have shed some light on his private life in New York City but Fred had a homophobic streak and probably felt he was improving Jack's reputation by destroying the personal material.

The thing that makes this copy of Shaggy Man a favorite acquisition of 2011 is that it is inscribed by Jack Snow on the ownership page: "This Book Belongs to Pat and Janet Nelson with love from the author, Jack Snow".

I've no idea who Pat and Janet are, nor whether Pat is male or female thus the book could be inscribed to an adult couple or to two little girls. Perhaps they were twins like Twink and Tom? In any case I'm very pleased to have this small but direct contact with the fourth Royal Historian of Oz.

Inscription by Oz author Jack Snow in THE SHAGGY MAN OF OZ (1949).

Happy Birthday, Rachel Cosgrove!

Today, December 11, 2011, would have been Rachel Cosgrove Payes's 89th birthday.

In the summer of 1979 I finally obtained a copy of her first book The Hidden Valley of Oz (not a first edition) and after reading it I wanted to write Rachel Cosgrove and get my book signed. I wrote Fred Meyer, then secretary of the Oz Club, for her address, but he warned me she'd probably not answer as she hated Oz and hated Oz fans. But he sent me her address and I decided to try my luck.

Click to Enlarge

I got an immediate reply from Rachel and she couldn't have been more charming. She even doodled little pictures of her characters Percy and Spots from Hidden Valley at the bottom of the letter. She happily agreed to autograph my book and signed the letter "Oz forever!"

It turns out she didn't dislike Oz or dislike Oz fans - she disliked Fred Meyer. When the Oz Club was founded in the late 1950s Fred had written to Rachel asking if she'd like to join. She politely declined for various reasons, including having two young children to raise. But Fred kept badgering her - and he really kept badgering her to send him a copy of her then-unpublished second Oz book, The Wicked Witch of Oz. She finally had to read him the riot act - asking him to leave her alone - something that I'm sure she could do quite well! And Fred wrote her off as an Oz hater.

Now, Rachel did indeed have a problem understanding grown men devoting their lives to Oz. She repeatedly said, "Oz is for kids." Rachel also had great trouble comprehending what she called "the collector mentality." But to some extent these were just sound bytes Rachel would toss out. Anyone who makes herself a Wicked Witch of the South costume (pointy hat included) and delights in showing off her silver high heels (as silver slippers) must have a big streak of Ozzy fandom running through her veins. 

So back to that first letter from 1979. I sent Rachel my copy of Hidden Valley and she signed it. We struck up a pen-pal sort of correspondence, exchanging a couple letters a year and birthday and Christmas cards. In early 1985 I was going to be in New York State and I wrote and asked if I might pay her a visit. She said she'd be delighted. Rachel was living in Shrub Oak, New York, about half an hour north of NYC. She welcomed me in, we talked for a bit, she showed me the shelves that held copies of all of her books (almost forty titles at that time), and we also looked at her research library which she used in writing the gothic romance novels she wrote in her latter years.

Rachel Cosgrove Payes in her living room, January 1985.

The most surprising thing about the visit was finding Rachel had a bad foot. She had fought a serious battle with cancer a couple decades before, and the experimental chemo that saved her life dissolved some bones in her foot. She got around fine, and her foot never stopped her from doing extensive world travel or going dancing with her husband Norman. I had acquired a first edition of Hidden Valley by this time and I brought it along, hoping she would sign it. She happily agreed to do so.

We continued to exchange notes on occasion - especially after I started attending NYU. But in the summer of 1990 our relationship kicked into higher gear. Eric Shanower and I had just started living together and suddenly Eric was asked by the Oz Club to illustrate Rachel's Wicked Witch of Oz. The Oz Club had just gotten the rights to reprint Hidden Valley of Oz, too. Rachel decided to attend the Munchkin Convention that year and her Ozzy renaissance began. She and Eric wrote back and forth quite a bit while he was illustrating the book, Rachel became a regular at the Munchkin Convention, and in 1994 I asked her to write something Ozzy for the first issue of my forthcoming anthology Oz-story. A few months later a long short story arrived in the mail, "Percy and the Shrinking Violet."

Eric, Rachel, and David at the OZ-STORY No. 1 Publication Party - June 1995

She wrote me another story, "Spots in Oz," for Oz-story No. 3. She and Norman had become good friends. Eric and I held publication parties for each issue of Oz-story and Rachel and Norman always came. Rachel often brought little hand-made gifts and bottles of wine, she baked Hidden Valley muffins for us, she went to a lot of trouble to track down a refrigerator magnet set she thought Eric and I needed - it was a Michelangelo Statue of David magnet complete with removable Santa suit! It's on our current refrigerator still. Every few weeks Eric and I would get a letter (sometimes addressed to our dog) and Rachel would have scribbled some complaint about writing, clipped a cartoon, and thrown in some coupons for something she thought we might need. Rachel was no longer the Royal Historian of Oz - she'd just become a good friend.

Happy Birthday, Rachel.

Who Stole the Sexing Stones?

I just finished reading Rachel Cosgrove's SF novel The Deathstones, published by Avalon Books in 1964. As with all of Rachel's SF for Avalon, the book was published under her pseudonym E. L. Arch. Most of my readers know that Rachel Cosgrove was the fifth Royal Historian of Oz, author of The Hidden Valley of Oz and The Wicked Witch of Oz. I've kind of gotten onto a Cosgrove kick lately. I had to dig thru my Cosgroviana a few weeks ago to find a checklist of Rachel's work for a friend who's been bit by the research bug. I wish him lots of luck and much fun!

But as I was saying, I just finished reading The Deathstones. The novel begins on the planet Isis in the Ranian system. Captain Jack Landers is looking for a crew for his small spaceship, the Motley. He and his first-mate hire three peculiar aliens to crew the ship, and yes, Rachel makes a joke about the Motley Crew several times. The three aliens are called X, Y, and Z.

X is the most interesting. He's a protoplasm blob sort of like Odo from Deep Space Nine, except that X can't take other forms. X is a native of the planet Isis. The species is quite intelligent, but can't communicate directly with humans. They can, however, absorb information or instructions if they are in direct physical contact with the person thinking said information. These Ranians (the blobs) have no gender until they make a pilgrimage to the Temple of the Sexing Stones. They enter the temple as grey blobs and leave as either bright red or deep violet blobs who must then mingle with a blob of the opposite color.

Well, Captain Landers is hired by six humans to take them to Osiris (the most distant planet in the system). The bulk of the novel plays out on the crowded little spaceship. The passengers consist of five men and one woman; Captain Landers is none too pleased to have a woman on board. His attitude is very misogynistic, as are the attitudes of the other male passengers. Oddly, the woman is in fact kind of awful. I kept hoping Rachel would redeem her or address the sexist attitudes of the men, but she did not. At one point Amanda says, "I'm such a dope about mechanical things . . . I need a man around to help me." She's simpering, ditzy, and manipulative. Within a few chapters someone has killed her and the book plays out as a murder mystery.

But wait, there's a subplot! Halfway through the journey they hear over the news service that Isis is in chaos - the Sexing Stones have been stolen! Without them the gray blobs will never discover their genders, won't be able to "intermingle" with the opposite color, and there will be no more baby blobs. But in the end the Sexing Stones are found, the murderer gets what he deserves, and all ends as it should with a little help from the Deathstones.

The book was a quick and pleasant read. The grumpy pessimistic captain, the small crew, the half-dozen passengers with secrets (one of whom is a preacher), tooling around a single solar system at sub-light speed definitely reminded me of Joss Whedon's Firefly. 

I got my copy of the book many years ago, but never sat down to read it. I wish I had so I could have discussed a few things with Rachel, such as Amanda's character, which seems so odd coming from the strong, well-educated woman Rachel was. I did ask Rachel to sign my copy of The Deathstones, and I was very pleased with what she wrote. I do miss her friendship.

 

You can read about E. L. Arch's Bridge to Yesterday by clicking here.

Writing a Better Oz Book

Last week I shared some memories of visiting with Eloise Jarvis McGraw back in 1984. In that blog I mentioned that she donated a first edition copy of John R. Neill's The Scalawagons of Oz to the Winkie Convention auction.

I already had a first edition, but I knew the story behind Eloise's copy and much wanted to win it for myself. The bidding was spirited, but in the end I seized the day and seized Eloise's copy of Scalawagons. After the auction I asked Eloise to write down the tale of how this copy of an often-reviled Oz book played an important role in Oz history. Please note the name Gayla scribbled in pencil above the title on the front cover. Here's the tale as Eloise wrote it down:

"Gayla McCreight is the daughter of my first cousin - This book, which was originally hers, came into the possession of my daughter (and co-author) Lauren Lynn McGraw, who was reading it one day in 1962, looked up at me and said, 'We could write a better Oz book!' Whether we did or not is not for me to say, but we tried - in Merry Go Round in Oz.  - Eloise Jarvis McGraw"

So this copy of Scalawagons prompted Eloise and her daughter to write Merry Go Round in Oz.

Interestingly, Rachel Cosgrove, author of Hidden Valley of Oz, also credited her irritation with Scalawagons as motivation for writing her Oz book! I tried to acquire Rachel's copy of Scalawagons, but was never able to. I thought the two copies would make a neat set.

The Scarecrow Goes to College!

In doing much research on the 1903 Wizard of Oz musical for my 2 CD set of Vintage Recordings from the show and my current book project, I have become a fan of Fred Stone who created the role of the Scarecrow. While I have only read of his amazing, amusing, and acrobatic antics on stage, I have seen quite a few of his films from later in his life, and I've got quite a little scrapbook of photos, clippings and odd bits relating to Fred Stone.

One thing I did not have until today was one of his Scarecrow sketches. Occasionally when he signed his autograph he would doodle a Scarecrow. I've seen a dozen or so of these over the years, but either lost out in the bidding, or thought the asking price was too high, but I knew I'd eventually find one.

I'm quite happy with this one. It is large, measuring about 6" x 9" and drawn in pencil which I think adds some subtlety to Stone's drawing. This particular sketch is on the back of a guide book for Knowles Memorial Chapel at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida dated 1937.

I have not yet deciphered the second autograph. Any guesses?

That Hamilton Woman

When I was in my mid-teens and just starting to seriously build my Oz collection, I went on a jag trying to get as many of my books autographed as possible. A few of the folks I contacted became good friends: Dick Martin, Elosie Jarvis McGraw, Rachel Cosgrove;  and a few politely agreed to autograph books by mail, they signed the books, and that was that: Russell MacFall, Edward Wagenknecht, Donald Wollheim, etc.

I had met Aljean Harmetz the year before her landmark Making of the Wizard of Oz was published, and I got a signed copy from her the next year. But that book also had a foreword by Margaret Hamilton and I really wanted to get the foreword signed, too. So I wrote Hamilton a letter asking if I might send my copy of the book to her for an autograph (with return postage of course) and I didn't hear back . . . and didn't hear back . . . and then finally a letter from Margaret Hamilton! It was postmarked July 28, 1980, seven months after I had first written her.

She wrote in quite a scrawl, up the side of the page and then back across the top where she signed it, "Maggie H." (upside-down above the words New York in her printed address). Here's what she wrote:

Dear Mr. Maxine - I just can't believe it! Dec. '79? Please accept my guiltful!!?! apologies! I hate to have people mail anything you want back! We have lost books mailed - never to turn up. Our NYC mail is the worst in the nation!If you do not care why send it and we'll both pray. If you do care - let me suggest you tape this card with my greetings or a nice smaller one. I would not suggest the U.S. mails, nor trust them. I was so sad not to make the convention - next year I hope! So you do as you wish and I'll do all you ask at this end. Let's hope for good luck!

Very best to you - Maggie H.
PS - Do you know my friends the Hibbens?

Well, as it turned out I received her letter about a week before the 1980 Munchkin Convention for which she was to be a special guest. I took my book with me, and she signed it there, in person. The first thing that struck me was how very tiny she was. True, I was six feet tall, but my mom was 5'- 3" and even she was surprised by how tiny Margaret Hamilton was!  At lunch I was able to sit at her table and I remember looking at her hands, wondering if I could see any scars from her accident while filming in Munchkinland. I couldn't - they just looked like spotty old lady hands.

Somehow no one much discussed The Wizard of Oz. The main story I recall Hamilton telling at the lunch table involved a film called These Three (1936), the first film version of Lillian Hellman's The Children's Hour, in which they turned the child's lie about lesbianism into a lie about heterosexual adultery. It's actually a good film, despite the meddling.

There is a scene where the child, played by Bonita Granville, admits the lie after it has destroyed three lives, and Margaret Hamilton (playing a maid) has to slap Granville very hard. They shot the scene several times, Hamilton kept pulling back on the slap, and Granville wasn't making the slap believable with her acting. Finally, director William Wyler had had enough, and he got rather angry. They were wasting time, money, and film. He told Hamilton to really slap her, slap her good, so they could get the shot in the can and move on. As I recall the story, Wyler told Hamilton in private so Granville would react properly. Action! Hamilton hauled back and slapped Bonita Granville hard across the cheek. In the film Granville looks stunned, pauses for a moment, begins to shake slightly, and the tears pour out and she runs up the stairs. It's great! Hamilton was very upset over it. She said after Wyler called cut, she could still see her hand-print on Bonita Granville's face. She went out and bought Bonita a gift. Some Wicked Witch!

I was very glad I got to meet Margaret Hamilton.

Dorothy's Oz book

My BF Eric got a very interesting eBay win in the mail today. It's a first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, containing first state text and second state color plates. Alas, it is a wreck, it's mostly unbound, it's missing a spine, it's missing three plates - did I mention it's a wreck? No wonder hardly anyone even bid on it.

Anna Laughlin as Dorothy

What makes it especially interesting to me (and makes me glad that this copy has now come to live with us, even if it is technically in Eric's collection and not mine) is that this copy previously belonged to Anna Laughlin who created the role of Dorothy Gale in the 1902 stage musical The Wizard of Oz

The book is signed by Anna Laughlin twice on the front free end paper. The first signature reads: N. Y. City -  S. H. P. May 11, 1902 - Property of Anna S. Laughlin. We don't know who or what "S. H. P." is. Eric chooses to think it is the person that gave her the book. Interestingly, this date of May 11, 1902, is before the show even opened in Chicago, so Anna clearly got the book just before boarding the Chicago train. The Wizard of Oz premiered in Chicago on June 16, 1902.

Anna Laughlin was born October 11, 1885, in Sacramento, California. So she was only sixteen when she got this book and became the first Dorothy. The book is signed a second time with Anna's married name. She married a diamond importer named Dwight Monroe just as she was finishing up her run in The Wizard of Oz. They had one child, Lucy Monroe, who was born on October 23, 1906. Lucy went on to become a popular radio singer. Anna Laughlin died on March 6, 1937.

This book contains one other curiosity. It has Denslow's "Poppy Field" endpapers which were designed for the 1903 Bobbs-Merrill second edition. They seem to have been added to this otherwise first-state Hill printing. Was this a repair job done by Laughlin herself? Did she just adore the new Poppy Field endpapers - the Poppy Scene was a high-point in the show - and get a set from Denslow? Were the Poppy Field endsheets possibly given away as a promotion or on display in the lobby of the theatre in 1903? We'll probably never know. Where this book has been since it left the hands of the first Dorothy Gale is unknown - and how it got so trashed is uncertain. But it has a good home now.

Don't Write in Your Books!

This week Jared Davis's Royal Blog of Oz reviewed Ruth Plumly Thompson's 1934 Oz book, Speedy in Oz. I agree with his appraisal - the book is one of Thompson's better Oz books, and it was supposedly her own favorite.

About fifteen years ago two Oz friends, David and Douglas Greene, decided to sell their very substantial Baum and Oz collection. Many of their Thompson Oz books had been personally inscribed, and I knew I wanted one. As you've probably surmised by now, I chose to focus my limited financial resources on their copy of Speedy in Oz.

Besides just wanting an inscribed copy of one of my RPT favorites, I also chose this copy because it was in virtually like-new condition and in dustjacket. I was also greatly pleased that this book had been signed to "David" Greene, and not to his twin brother, Douglas. This way I can kinda sorta pretend it was signed to me (since I'm named David).

Thompson wrote a rhyming inscription: "When it comes to good reading, adventures, and fun, the kingdom of Oz, Dave, is second to none! Cheeriest wishes from all the Oz folk and Ruth Plumly Thompson."

Thompson also scribbled a bit on the ownership page. After the printed This Book Belongs to she has written in David Greene! She then drew three little stick-figure sketches of a man all excited in Dave's behalf. I bet you didn't know RPT ever drew any sequential art!

Happy Birthday, Mr. Kramer!

Today is the birthday of Oz illustrator Frank Kramer who was born November 23, 1905. He would have been 105 today.

Kramer illustrated both of Jack Snow's Oz books, The Magical Mimics in Oz (1946) and The Shaggy Man of Oz (1949), as well as many sci-fi and fantasy stories for magazines such as Unknown Worlds.

I tried to contact Frank Kramer back in the late 1980s in hopes of getting an interview with him. There was a lot of mystery surrounding how he came to illustrate his Oz books - but I must admit I also hoped I might be able to get Kramer to sign a couple books for me. But it didn't work out. Kramer was too ill to communicate with fans by that point. But I did speak briefly with his wife. Kramer died in 1993.

In the last couple years Oz researcher, and former Baum Bugle editor, Atticus Gannaway has filled in many of the holes in Kramer's life and history, for which I am very grateful.

While I never did have the chance to get Frank Kramer to autograph a book for me, I was lucky enough to find a copy of Magical Mimics that he'd autographed for a little girl back in 1946 when the book was new. You can see the inscription below.  Happy Birthday, Mister Kramer!