White Edition Wednesday - Weekly Reader Goes to Oz

My loyalest readers may recall one of our most popular blog series, "White Edition Wednesday." I am quite pleased to offer an additional installment! If you prefer, you can re-read the entire "White Edition Wednesday" series from the beginning by clicking here:

In our WEW post called "Offspring," I mentioned the Weekly Reader boxed sets as seen above. These boxes survive in a number of Oz collections, though they do not always have the same books in them. One box claiming to be "as issued" contains the seven titles shown at right. The first seven Baum books (Wizard through Patchwork) do not seem to fit.

In the "comments" on the "Offspring" blog a reader named Len mentions having received his set in 1965 or 1966.

I had never seen any publicity suggesting how these sets were sold. Was there a mail-in campaign? I mainly remember the Weekly Reader as a small newsletter given out to kids when I was in First Grade. But, no matter, a few days ago I acquired a lovely piece of vintage "white edition" publicity created by Weekly Reader!

It is a large 2-sided poster, or rather, brochure, measuring 22" x 17." It is printed in full color. I've shared fairly large images so that when you click on an image you can probably read almost all of the type. Here's the front side.

Weekly Reader Oz book poster - Click to enlarge.

The promotion is offering a free copy of The Wizard of Oz if one agrees to "examine" the later volumes. Obviously Weekly Reader is hoping the parents will buy the lucky child the full set. The text on the brochure is quite well-written. I was especially pleased to see they used male pronouns, as in:

When you give your child this wonderful Oz book, exciting things happen. Almost like magic, he is whisked to the fascinating, enchanting world of Oz. Here he meets little Dorothy Gale . . .

The early 1960s family is rather engaging in a retro sort of way.

The text on this side goes on to mention the 1939 Judy Garland film, "Millions thrilled to the antics of Judy Garland and Ray Bolger," and the book has a lengthy quote from Baum discussing what age his Oz stories are written for.

The other side of the brochure is equally attractive as the first.

Weekly Reader Oz book poster - Click to enlarge.

We get a spread from Wizard, showing the book at actual size, the covers of eight of the later Oz titles, and a long excerpt of Edward Wagenknecht's afterword.

In the lower left corner, in the box with the ordering information, there is am item entitled: "Calling all children: an Interview with the Wizard himself." This is pulled from the 1965 issue of The Ozmapolitan. You can read that issue by clicking here. The article is the one on the first page with the Japanese characters.

This brochure may well have been part of a more elaborate mailing. The instructions for ordering say to: "Just slip your FREE BOOK TOKEN into the 'Yes' slot in your Free Gift Certificate and this book is yours." Anyone out there want to send me a book token and certificate so I can complete my set?

The ordering info explains that you will receive Wizard for free, to be followed by volumes 2 and 3 at approximately four week intervals, sent on approval. Once you've accepted those two volumes along with your free copy of Wizard, Weekly Reader mails you the remaining eleven titles all at once but with the option of paying for them monthly, one at a time. The Weekly Reader price for the Oz books is $3.29 per title. Reilly & Lee was charging $3.95 each when the books were first released.

There is no date on this elaborate bit of publicity. There is also no mention of the fine boxed set I showed at the top of this post. Perhaps the box was offered at a later point in time, but the "comment" from Len that I referenced above suggests that he got his boxed set in 1965-'66. Does this imply that the boxed set came first and this "book club" deal was offered later? There are still some mysteries to solve in "White Edition Wednesday!"

Well, now that this blog series is complete, there is only one thing for you to do - go back to the very first post and reread all eighteen "white edition" blogs from the beginning! Have fun!

Click here to return to the beginning of our "White edition Wednesday" series!

Happy Holidays!

I suppose folks have noticed that I've been blogging a lot less than I used to. There are many reasons - I have been busier at work, I became irritated over a handful of obnoxious people who were leaving obnoxious comments on the blog (I deleted them), and I must admit I felt a little bit of blogger burn-out - a quite common disease! I sincerely hope to begin blogging more regularly again and will do my best to do so.

Today I am sharing an assortment of Ozzy news, but wanted to add a personal touch as the more personal blog posts have always been the more enjoyable to write. As I mentioned in an earlier post, my first exposure to Oz was my watching the MGM film on our black-and-white television when I was four years old. I enjoyed it a lot, but it certainly didn't turn me into a mega-Oz fan. However, not long after seeing the film, my mom and I were walking through the Lobo Bookstore near the University of New Mexico campus, and on an end-cap I saw a copy of The Wizard of Oz - the edition pictured below.

I don't remember if I saw the cover and knew what it was or whether my mom pointed it out. In any case, we bought it and I think it was read to me. However, the main thing I remember was how much the cover illustration fascinated me. I'm still not sure why. Perhaps it was because the characters looked quite different from the way they did in the MGM film? I think it was partly the heavy blue/green tonality of the image. I don't know what happened to the original copy of the book we bought, but when I found this copy about fifteen years ago, I saw the cover illustration and instantly was taken back to being four years old. It was quite a powerful sensation!

The book has proved quite interesting to examine with my adult eyes. The book was published by Avon Books, and this copy says "First Camelot Printing, November 1967." I suspect I encountered the book right after it came out. The interior is an unabridged Wizard text featuring all of the illustrations from the early 1960s Reilly & Lee "white edition." The little book even has a collage of Denslow images printed on the inside covers and fly-leaves, creating an "endpaper" effect. I am sure, in retrospect, that one thing that drew me to want the book when I was little was the fact that it was profusely illustrated. 

So this was my first ever Oz book. I wasn't really hooked until my second grade teacher started reading us the later Baum Oz titles, but I'm really happy to have found a copy of the first Oz book I ever remember seeing or owning.

OK, now that I have made you read this far, I will toss a few bits of Ozzy news into the blog. First, we have posted our December Tiger Tale on the website and I hope you'll take a moment to check it out. It is L. Frank Baum's short story "Aunt 'Phroney's Boy," first published exactly a hundred years ago in the December 1912 issue of St. Nicholas Magazine.

I am also pleased to announce that a new issue of Eric Shanower's Age of Bronze has just been published. Copies can be ordered from our website or found in your local comic book store. Click here to order.

That's about it for today - I'll do my best to not make you wait too long for another blog post.

Happy Holidays!

Big Little Judy

I'm not much of a Judy collector. While I am a fan,  the Garland/Oz connection is too weak for me to think of that stuff as Oz material. My Garland LPs are just in with the records - the DVDs are just in the shelf in alphabetical order. But a very few things have made it into the Oz collection, including this - another neat find on the great summer road trip!

As you see, it's a "Big Little Book" just like Frank J. Baum's The Laughing Dragon of Oz (1934). Thus the book is tiny - measuring only 3 3/4" x 4 1/2". You may have noted, too, that the book is actually called a "Better Little Book" on the cover, reflecting Whitman's renaming of the series in 1938.

I'm unsure what the actual title of the book is. On the front cover it just says Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. On the spine it says Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland and how they got into the Movies. And on the title page we get the even bigger mouthful Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, The Story of their Rise to Fame and Fortune in the Movies.

Whatever the actual title is, the book was written by Edward J. Gruskin and published in 1941. Like other BLBs it is profusely illustrated. At least a third of its 425 pages contains illustrations. The illustrator is uncredited, but at least one BLB checklist credits the illustrations to Henry E. Vallely. The pictures are quite handsome, and most seem to be based on actual photos of Judy and Mickey.

I have only skimmed the book thus far. The narrative is divided into four sections. The first few chapters are about Judy and Mickey together, their friendship and working on the MGM lot. Then we get a long section on Judy's life, another long section on Mickey's life, and finally another section about them together and life at MGM. And in that section, beginning on page 378, we get:

"The biggest thrill of her life, however, was the day Mervyn LeRoy, the famous producer, called her on the 'phone. "Judy," Mr. LeRoy asked, "Have you read 'Wizard of Oz?'"

"Oh yes," Judy said. "Often. It's one of my favorite stories."

"Well, we've just bought it for a Technicolor picture."

"Gee! You mean you're going to make it just as it's written with the Land of Oz and the Emerald City and the Munchkins and - and everything?"

"Everything, Judy. Just as Frank Baum wrote the book. And who do you think is going to play the part of Dorothy?"

Judy held her breath, hardly able to wish for what she hoped he would tell her.

"You - You tell ME, Mr. LeRoy."

"You, Judy. You're going to play Dorothy."

To this day, to anybody who will listen, Judy will sit for hours to relate the wonderful experiences she had making the picture; of the thrill she received each morning when she came to the set and found a real "land of make believe."

For her sensational performance in this picture, she won a special Academy Award.

The next chapter is all about Judy and Mickey planning for the premiere of The Wizard of Oz at the Capital Theatre in New York. But I'm gonna save it for a future blog-post.

It's a very neat little book. I mean a Big Little Book, uhh . . . a Better Little Book . . . it's Ozzy!

I am also just happy to have another BLB to keep my Laughing Dragon of Oz company along with my other Oz-related BLB Little Miss Muffet. If you don't know why Little Miss Muffet is Oz-related you can read about that in this previous blog-post by clicking here.

The three Oz-related "Big Little Books."

As I Was Saying . . .

Has anyone noticed that I haven't been blogging quite as much as I used to? Well, what with Comic Con, the Winkie Convention, a variety of house guests, and a three week, eight thousand mile road trip - who's had time! Excuses, excuses ...

Well, now that that's out of the way, what better way to get back into the thick of things than with a good old-fashioned White Edition Wednesday post! One of the things Eric and I did on the road trip was scour antique malls and junk shops and little grungy bookstores. At one of the first shops we stopped at I spotted a few "white editions." One of them was a copy of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz - the oddball variant where Reilly & Lee bound up their leftover 1950s text blocks in "white edition" covers. There are a fair number of these floating around, but I had never actually examined one. I bought it, of course, and I was surprised to see it had blank endpapers, not the usual Road to Oz endpapers. No one who reported to me on this variant even mentioned the lack of illustrated endpapers, so I don't know if this is a new variant or if my bibliographical elves simply didn't notice a lack of illustrated endsheets in their copies.

So, Ta dah! Still another "White Edition" variant!  You'll be getting a number of other reports on my travel finds in the coming weeks, so stay tuned.

That Wandering Troubadour

The most recent published checklist of the work of "Imperial Illustrator of Oz" John R. Neill was compiled by James Haff. It appeared in 1977, the centennial of Neill’s birth, in the Oz Club’s journal, The Baum Bugle. The 1977 checklist was an excellent advance on the Neill information previously available, but it had errors and omissions. For instance, no one had at that point checked all the Altemus boys and girls series to see which volumes Neill had actually illustrated.

In 1993 Dan Smith, then co-editor and production artist on The Baum Bugle, was working on an updated Neill checklist. That revised checklist corrected some of the 1977 information and added plenty of new information. It also raised new questions. The Dan Smith checklist has never been published, which is a shame. It should be - although at this point it needs its own update.

Case in point: One of Dan’s questions was whether a Neill-illustrated edition of El Trovador, the 1836 Spanish Romantic play by García Gutiérez (the basis for Verdi’s opera Il Trovatore), had ever been published by Ginn and Company.  Preparatory drawings by Neill for an illustrated version of El Trovador were in the possession of Neill’s daughters, but Dan wondered whether anyone had ever seen a copy. Did the book even exist?

Well, the answer turned out to be “yes.” A copy of Neill’s 1926 illustrated version of El Trovador has been hanging out in the Tiger Den for several years now, thanks to an online search prompted by Dan’s question. And now Hungry Tiger Press is happy to present some of those illustrations for your viewing pleasure, executed in Neill’s intricate pen-and-ink style.

Jackpot!

A few days ago a friend called to ask if I wanted some Oz books he'd found at a local book sale. He said there were fourteen of them so I assumed it was a set of Baum titles. He didn't tell me the titles but he said they were older editions probably all from the 1940s. I asked how much they were and was told five bucks for the lot. I said, "Sure!"

My friend called back a bit later and said he'd been misinformed - that the books were $5 each. But if I was gonna take all fourteen I could have them for $50. I said, "Sure," again. This is what I got.

Needless to say I am quite pleased. All but one (a 1950s edition of  Wonder City) are indeed from the 1940s; most have gift inscriptions from 1944 to 1946. They are all in quite nice condition and nearly all have their pictorial endpapers. There are three first editions: Captain Salt, Scalawagons, and Lucky Bucky as well as a 1944 first printing of the Evelyn Copelman edition of Wizard from 1944.

I'm quite excited for my little treasure trove - but I am beginning to think the value in Oz books is starting to come crashing down. I am seeing so many now. In the 70s, 80s, and 90s, Oz books were hard to find. One seldom walked into an old bookstore and saw a row of old Oz titles. Now I see a few at least  in most every old bookstore I go into. And it's not just in San Diego. When Eric and I were driving across the country this past Christmas I saw quite a few Oz books along the way in Antique Malls and bookstores. The internet and eBay are overflowing with bargains! Multiple copies of Thompson first editions in dust jacket for under $300 - half the price such books would have been five years ago. All I can assume is that supply has caught up with demand and the Ozzy market is saturated.

Clearly very fine first editions, signed books, and the like hold a certain value - but from the prices I'm seeing online and in bookstores I doubt I could sell books I bought in the late 1970s for what I paid for them back then. There is a very decent first edition of Hidden Valley of Oz on eBay right now going for under $18 and no one is even bidding. There is another lovely (and overpriced) first edition in dust jacket going for almost $500, too. No one is bidding on that one either.

So while I'm really pleased with my little trove I do wonder what's happening to Oz and book collecting. Never has it been so easy and so affordable to build a decent collection. Sadly so few people seem to have an interest in doing so. That said, it's nice to have friends who will call when they find Ozzy treasure!

Kabumpo Goes to Moscow

As you have undoubtedly read on this blog, we will be celebrating Ruth Plumly Thompson's birthday at this year's Winkie Convention. It promises to be a grand time and in addition to some great Thompson programming on Friday evening the convention will also feature an elaborate display of Thompson's work. And over the next few months I will try to give you a few sneak previews of some unusual and little known Thompson material.

Today I want to share a quite lovely Russian edition of Thompson's second Oz book Kabumpo in Oz. Only seven of Thompson's Oz books have ever been translated into any language and all seven were published in Russia.

The Russian Kabumpo was published in 2001 by Vrymy. And it is almost certainly the most beautiful and luxurious edition of Kabumpo ever published. Can any of my readers translate the title of the book for me?

The cloth binding is stamped in gold on the front cover and spine and features an undersized version of the original pictorial cover label - slightly reworked to omit the lettering.

The book also features John R. Neill's  original pictorial endpapers  printed in plum-colored ink.

The interior of the book is beautifully designed, too. The handsome new title page can be seen at right and there is a two-page introduction explaining how Thompson acquired the mantle of Royal Historian of Oz and offers a few biographical details..

The volume includes all of Neill's original illustrations which are printed in the same plum-colored ink as the end sheets - as are the running titles. The text of the story is printed in black creating a vibrant contrast.

What makes this Russian edition even more special is the inclusion of all twelve of Neill's color plates.

There are similar editions of The Royal Book of Oz and Captain Salt in Oz - but I chose to show you Kabumpo as we are putting a special Winkie Convention focus on Thompson's Ozzy "Pumperdink" stories.

So come on, stretch your ears and pack your trunk and come join us at the Winkie Convention this summer! Click here or on the WINKIE CON tab at the top of this page for further details.

Emerald City Radio - Michael Riley

David Maxine & Michael Riley at the 1998 WINKIE CON.

This week on Emerald City Radio roving reporter Number Nine conducts an in-depth interview with Oz and Baum scholar Michael O. Riley (author of Oz and Beyond and owner of the acclaimed Pamami Press). The twenty minute interview plays twice daily.

It's easy to listen to Emerald City Radio on Live365. Just click here to go to Live365 and click "Sign Up" in the upper right hand corner and join for free for access to thousands of internet radio stations. Then "Log In" and make a search for Emerald City Radio. When the Emerald City Radio logo shows up in your search results, just click on the logo to start listening right away! Listening is free.

So come on and give Emerald City Radio a try. Our current playlist is over 12 hours long with such a wide variety of Oz songs and music that you're sure to hear some old friends and some new delights.

Emerald City Radio - all great, all powerful - all the time! 

White Edition Wednesday - NOT QUITE WHITE

Well, my friends, last week we finished our analysis of the "white editions," and this really must be the last post in the much ballyhooed "White Edition Wednesday" series as today's books are not quite "white."

But they should have been and nearly were! By now you've spotted the images and realize that today's blog will look at Reilly & Lee's 1969 edition of The Sea Fairies and 1970 edition of Sky Island.

Now, you might look at the dust wrapper of the new Sea Fairies (at left) and say, "That doesn't look much like a 'white edition!' " And you'd be right. Not only does the book have a dust jacket, but the book is bound in plain cloth with plain, albeit silver, stamping on the spine. And the dust jacket illustration isn't by Dick Martin.

It's very unclear why Reilly & Lee didn't issue the books in the "white edition" format - but as you'll see as you read on, they came very close - or at least Dick Martin's contributions came very close.

The 1969 Sea Fairies jacket was designed by Lois Axeman and it was based on John R. Neill's cover of the third edition from 1920.

I had always wondered why Dick Martin hadn't designed the new jacket and, alas, I have no clear-cut answer. Dick did design a Sea Fairies cover for this edition and it closely followed the "white edition" format, yet for some reason Reilly & Lee seems to have rejected it and opted for the bubbly Lois Axeman design. I suspect the publisher simply wanted to try a more modern and contemporary look. Dick's semi-retro art-nouveau cover rough (seen below) is no where near as "groovy" and "with it" as Lois Axeman's design.

Unused SEA FAIRIES cover design by Dick Martin.

It's easy to see that Dick intended this new edition to match the "white editions." His design is based on John R. Neill's original Sea Fairies endpaper design from 1911 (below). Dick used both the poses of Cap'n Bill and Trot as well as the red and green color scheme. The fish on Dick's spine is based on the fish on the spine of the first edition.

The following year Reilly & Lee put out a new edition of Sky Island, and this time Dick Martin was allowed to create the cover design.

The front dust jacket panel is based on Neill's cover label to the 1912 first edition. The orange and purple color scheme is very attractive. It certainly looks like Dick was thinking "white edition" when he was designing it.

Like Sea Fairies, though, this book got a dust wrapper and plain cloth - this time the spine being stamped in iridescent blue.

The back panel is based on Neill's color plate showing the Boolooroo with Button-Bright's magic umbrella. The umbrella on the spine is based on the spine vignette used on the first edition.

Unlike the "white editions," Dick Martin and Reilly & Lee made no alterations to the interiors of these editions of The Sea Fairies and Sky Island. They are essentially identical to the first editions (minus the color plates and pictorial endpapers). Both of these reprints have blank endpapers and each has a list of the fourteen Oz books in the forematter.

Dick prepared a new issue of The Ozmapolitan to publicize these two new books as the "Borderland of Oz" stories. You can read the entire issue of the 1970 Ozmapolitan by clicking here.

This really does seem to be the end of "White Edition Wednesday." It has been very popular. As a final little fillip of "white edition" goodness, here are the two advertising brochures that Reilly & Lee prepared. The longer brochure mentions that there are "twenty additional Oz titles available" by other authors. This means six of the forty Oz books were out of print.

I'm curious which six were unavailable and how long Reilly & Lee had any of the post-Baum Oz book in print. I know Merry Go Round in Oz was supposedly available new until the early 1970s. I must thank Michael O. Riley for the scans of the two brochures. Here they are.

Click to Enlarge

Click to Enlarge

We have one more post in this series, and you can read it here! Have fun!

Next week a new blog series will begin - Map of Oz Monday!

Woot!

In last week's "White Edition Wednesday" post I mentioned that the 1974 Hutchinson editions from England had replaced the "Famous Oz Books" advertisement with a new introduction and I promised to share an example this week. So here it is!

These new mini-forewords are rather a trifle, but I found it interesting to see how a foreign publisher explained the Oz series to new readers.

I also forgot to thank Freddy Fogarty in last week's WEW post for supplying the scans of the Hutchinson Oz books and the library binding of the Rand McNally Road to Oz. The copy of the Hutchinson Tin Woodman (at right) was a present from Freddy, too. He had recently upgraded his copy and I got this very nice hand-me-down. And that was how I discovered these unusual little forewords. Here's the one from Tin Woodman. Enjoy!

White Edition Wednesday - OFFSPRING

Last week we looked at the "white edition" of Glinda of Oz so we have now examined all fourteen of L. Frank Baum's Oz books as redesigned by Oz scholar and illustrator Dick Martin.

As we've already seen, Reilly & Lee promoted the series pretty heavily. They issued a handsome counter-top poster, distributed bookmarks, published a new edition of the Ozmapolitan newspaper, issued a pair of full-color Oz maps in 1968, and produced at least two different full-color flyers.I had meant to include scans of the advertising flyers this week but time has run out. The blog must be posted!  So you'll get them next week. 

The Weekly Reader Book Club issued a boxed set of seven "white editions" called The Treasury of Oz. I've not found an original advertisement for this set, and the books one finds in these boxes are usually random. But at least one box claiming to be "as issued" contains the seven titles shown at right. The first seven Baum books (Wizard through Patchwork) do not seem to fit. Perhaps Reilly & Lee was getting rid of overstocked titles? Or perhaps giving the kids a "sampler" of seven random Oz titles encouraged kids to complete the series and buy the other seven at full price.

Did any of my readers buy this boxed set from Weekly Reader back in the day? Does anyone have a date for this set or any promotional material?

The "White Edition" Legacy

Dick Martin's redesign of the books has spread far beyond the original "white editions." In 1971 the Rand McNally company began issuing the books in paperback versions with contents essentially identical to the hardcovers. These were originally priced at only $1.50 compared to Reilly & Lee's $3.95 hardcover asking price. The first batch from Rand McNally included the first five Baum books plus Tin Woodman. Over the next several years Rand McNally added a couple titles per year, eventually publishing twelve of the books (at left). For unknown reasons they never issued Rinkitink and Lost Princess in this format.

The Rand McNally paperbacks were how I first saw the "white editions," and these were the first Oz books I ever owned. I saw a big table stacked high with them at the Bellas-Hess Department Store in Albuquerque and convinced my mom to buy me all six then and there. I remember the day very well, and The Road to Oz (at right) was the first Oz book I ever read by myself (though I had heard many of the Baum books read aloud by my second grade teacher earlier that year). 

While no library bindings of the Reilly & Lee "white editions" are known to exist, copies of the Rand McNally "white edition" paperbacks were issued in hardcover library bindings. It's curious that it's the Rand McNally versions that got the library binding as one would think the stitched bindings of the Reilly & Lee hardcovers would be more durable. Perhaps the $1.50 price-point tipped the scale.

Rand McNally Library Edition

In 1974 Hutchinson Books in the United Kingdom published British editions of four of the "white edition" books (at left). These are very similar to the US editions, but the covers are glossy paper-covered boards with slightly modified cover designs. Bienvenue & Schmidt state the these books are smaller than the "white editions," but, in fact, they are both taller and thicker than the US versions, though the boards are a bit narrower horizontally, measuring only 6 - 3/8".

The books also replaced the text from the "Famous Oz Books" ad with new introductions specific to each title. I'll blog one of them later in the week so you can see what they're like.

Hutchinson U.K. edition of LOST PRINCESS

Scholastic Book Services published small size paperback versions of two of the "white editions," Ozma and Magic. The Scholastic Ozma (published September 1975) is especially interesting as the editor improved Dorothy's grammar by eliminating all of her baby-talk contractions. I s'pose someb'dy had to do it.

Scholastic Paperback Editions

In 1978 Reilly & Lee's parent company, Henry Regnery/Contemporary Books Inc., decided to cease publication of their hardcover "white editions" and to reissue them as trade paperbacks (at left). Evidence would indicate that they pulled the paperback rights away from Rand McNally, who immediately put all of their paperbacks out of print, except for Wizard and Land which were in public domain. Rand McNally kept these two in print for several more years.

When these new Reilly & Lee trade paperbacks were published they no longer bore the Reilly & Lee imprint. They were issued under the Regnery imprint (though some copies bear the Contemporary Books/CBI imprint instead). You can read my detailed account of these books by clicking here.

These new paperbacks were much smaller and the Dick Martin covers were redrawn in a slightly simpler fashion, including some subtle changes to the cover lettering.

Regular "white edition" at left; CBI paperback at right.

Regnery/CBI had only issued seven of the baby "white editions" when they struck a deal with Del Rey Books who wanted to reissue the Oz books as rack-sized paperbacks aimed at the adult fantasy market. At the time this drove me into fits. All of a sudden Oz books weren't in the juvenile section at B. Daltons and Waldenbooks, but classified instead as "Science Fiction." In many ways I still think the Del Rey deal contributed to a whole lost generation of Oz fandom. In any case, Regnery/CBI put their trade paperbacks out of print and that ended Reilly & Lee's connection to the Oz series.

The Del Rey Oz books were first published in 1979. Until I began work on this blog series I hadn't noticed that the Del Rey editions' interiors were created from Dick Martin's "white editions." While the text has been reset and the pictures are much smaller, the Del Rey versions include almost all of Dick Martin's new illustrations and rearrangement of existing illustrations, such as Martin's new line art drawings of the color-plates from Dorothy and the Wizard and the Kabumpo illustrations in Glinda.

Around 1981 a set of Oz books was issued by the Canadian bookseller and publisher Coles Books. Coles issued most, if not all, of the fourteen Baum titles in a paperback format nearly identical to the little Regnery/CBI versions. The covers are a little different, as they have been given decorative red tabs at the top and bottom, as seen on the Coles edition of Tik-Tok (at right). This Canadian Tik-Tok is also interesting as they did not completely keep Dick Martin's wraparound design. The back cover does indeed show Hank and the harness but the wagon hardware does not wrap around the spine.

For the record, Coles also issued an oversize hardcover version of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz using the original 1907 edition as source material. It included the sixteen color plates, making this the first edition of Dorothy and the Wizard with color illustrations since 1935.

Some Things We've Learned

I'd like to be able to say we've learned a bit about how to date certain of Reilly & Lee's various printings of the "white editions," but, alas, Reilly & Lee has made it very difficult. The earliest copies list all forty Oz books and later copies list only the Baum fourteen. The earliest "Famous Oz Books" ad spells out forty - however, there are variants that reset that paragraph to say fourteen, and then they re-typeset the copy in that paragraph completely, simply calling them "the famous Oz books." This would seem like a clear progression, but at some point Reilly & Lee reverted to an earlier set of printing plates and many late copies list forty Oz books all over again.

There are several very distinct versions of Wizard. Some have Denslow endpapers and some have Road endpapers. Also, the Kansas sequences are printed in chocolate brown in some copies and in gray in others.

Some reprints are printed on thinner paper and using slightly narrower boards resulting in the printed cloth not wrapping very well and making the design on front and back appear to be off-center. Alas, these variants seem to pop up in both very early and very late copies.

Most (if not all) of the books also come in variants where the original pale blue ink on the covers is a much darker process-blue. The pale blue is certainly what Dick intended, as the darker one throws off the color balance. Again, this press room choice seems to have happened several times both early and late.

This has been a very enjoyable sixteen weeks exploring these much-loved but little-discussed editions of the Oz books. Next week we will have one final installment. Two guesses where we're headed. Click here to find out!

White Edition Wednesday - GLINDA

Last week we broke the spell of The Magic of Oz, so this week we must learn a new magical lesson from Glinda of Oz. But before we do I wanted to mention how happy I am that "White Edition Wednesday" has turned out to be so popular! Many of you probably expect this to be the last installment as we've now covered all fourteen Baum Oz books, but I have two more WEW blog-posts to write. So don't go away.

Now on to Glinda. The front cover is based on John R. Neill's original cover label from 1920. The most significant change is in Glinda's gown. In addition to making it a very appropriate red, Dick redrew the collar, adding a scalloped edge, shoulders, and a string of pearls. I think Dick Martin's new coloring has greatly improved the image. I like the light blue background better than the orange. Dick has given Dorothy a new green plaid for her dress, which successfully makes her look a lot more modern.

The exotic bird on the spine is from the first edition spine - though the bird also appears in the chapter heading on page 149. The back cover is a new drawing cobbled together by Dick Martin using several characters from the left half of the original pictorial endpapers of the first edition.

Endpapers from the first edition of GLINDA OF OZ

One thing I certainly never realized until I began writing this blog series was that Dick Martin used a number of drawings from Kabumpo in Oz to fill out the fore-matter of Glinda - such as this Ozzy drawing of Glinda and her reading matter from Glinda's "Famous Oz Books" ad, which Dick pulled from page 109 of the first edition of Kabumpo.

This time Dick has preserved the original ownership leaf. But on the verso, Dick has used a small scrap of illustration from the floral border-design of the endpapers of the first edition of The Emerald City of Oz. Dick has created a new (but very appropriate) frontispiece showing Glinda looking at her Book of Records, an illustration Dick has pulled from page 110 of Kabumpo in Oz. 

The Glinda of Oz copyright page really shows Dick Martin's attention to detail. He went to the trouble to re-letter the "All rights reserved" line  - a very subtle but handsome improvement. Dick also removed the "made in U. S. A." line and a few lines from the bottom of Glinda's gown.

Following the copyright page and dedication page, Dick has added an illustration of Princess Dorothy which he cut from the "white edition" of The Tin Woodman of Oz.

 

Dick has created a new illustration at the end of the book on page 280, using the right half of the original 1920 endpapers as source material. Dick has eliminated the Scarecrow and drawn a new background. He also neatly copies Neill's Glinda of Oz calligraphy for the words "The End."

That may be the end of the "white edition" of Glinda of Oz, but there is a bit more to show. The back cover image was reproduced as one of the three very handsome OZCO posters from 1967 - the other two being the back covers from Wizard and Ozma.

1967 OZCO Poster

This isn't the end of "White Edition Wednesday," because it isn't the end of the "white edition" story. I'll say no more today. You'll just have to check back next week and see where we go from here!