Map of Oz Monday - To Help You Find the Way to Oz

Circa 1949 to 1959

The Map of Oz Monday series has been one of my most followed blog threads. While I have yet to complete my discussion of the various iterations of the Oz Club's maps (I promise I will get back to it!), I am delighted to offer a rather different installment today.

About ten days ago Eric and I were contacted by an elderly woman who wanted to know if we were interested in a book she had to sell. It was a copy of the 1949-1959 edition of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz with the rather ugly cover label from that era. I actually didn't own a copy of that edition, as I always found it rather, well, ugly. But this copy was in beautiful condition and had its dust jacket. I offered her a fair price and the deal seemed to be complete. 

But then she mentioned she also had a tattered Map of Oz, partially colored in with crayons and pens, and which also had some "writing" on it, which she mentioned, I think, as a possible defect. Being an Oz map buff, I asked for a scan and she kindly supplied one.

Click to Enlarge

This is what used to be thought of as the "Coloring Contest Map," and I originally blogged about it under that name. But a few weeks after my original post I obtained a scan of the "ACTUAL Coloring Contest Map." Click on either link to read those earlier posts.

As you see on the "LAND OF OZ" side, there's a bit of crayoning in the Emerald City. A minor defect, but I already own a fine condition copy of this map. But turn the map over to the "SURROUNDING COUNTRIES" side and one sees a good deal more crayoning and some outlining of the river systems in pen.

Click to Enlarge

But what's that writing in the top right corner? 

Why, it's a cheery and cozy wish from Ruth Plumly Thompson herself! Needless to say, I bought the map, as well as the copy of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. Eric and I felt a need to be ethical, so we told the woman what and whose the handwriting was. She was very grateful that we were honest, and we worked out a very fair price.

It then developed that the woman had a large collection of letters from various children's authors she had written to as a young teen in the mid-1950s. She now wished to find the letters a good home and make some extra money. 

I will be helping her sell that collection over the coming weeks. She has letters, ephemera, and a few photos from the likes of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Lois Lenski, Maud Hart Lovelace, Marguerite Henry, Stephen W. Meader, illustrator Wesley Dennis, Helen Fuller Orton, Marguerite de Angeli, and early science fiction author and author of many books on dogs and horses Col. S. P. Meek. There is also a 1934 letter to her father from President Roosevelt, and a long letter from poet Winifred Rawlins, including a hand-written poem called "Winter Solstice."

I will be selling the letters over the coming weeks on eBay. If you are interested in any of the letters, you can check my eBay seller name: hungrytigerboy over the next month or so - or drop me a message and I'll let you know when any particular letter is listed for sale.

The kind woman who is selling the letters and who sold me the book and map said she had no recollection of how or when she obtained the map. She didn't know who Ruth Plumly Thompson was and had never written to her. Possibly that copy of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz was sent to her as a gift from a relative near Philadelphia and Thompson had done a local signing of maps? The map was found folded in quarters, laid inside the book.

In any case, the map has found a fine home now - mine!

If you would like to read the entire Map of Oz Monday series CLICK HERE to start at the beginning. Follow thru links appear at the end of each blog post to take you to the next entry.

Copyright © 2024 David Maxine. All rights reserved.

Map of Oz Monday - Ojo Mojo

OK, boys and girls, we are setting off on a major hike through the Munchkin Country today. And Ojo and Realbad and Snufferbux are going to be our guides! Luckily Ojo has brought along the Oz maps created by L. Frank Baum and Ruth Plumly Thompson, and Snufferbux has his copies of the relevant texts.

Together we're gonna try to untangle what I see as the one terrible error on the Oz Club's maps, and that is the shifting of Ojo's and Doctor Pipt's homes to the northern Munchkin Country. Baum's map (and text) has them in the southern Munchkin Country.

Granted, there is a textual contradiction in Baum's The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1914). In short, the club maps chose to honor a totally unimportant slip of the pen by Baum (a reference to the Gillikin Country) and thus made hash of the story logic (and often explicit detail) of Baum's Patchwork Girl and Ruth Plumly Thompson's Ojo in Oz (1933).

I will be getting into Baum's text in detail. But here's what we're talking about.

Baum's map on left, Club map on right - Click to enlarge.

On the left is Baum's map showing Ojo in the South near the Quadling border; on the right is the Club's map showing Ojo in the north with Dr. Pipt's mountain on the Gillikin border. Exactly who pushed for this change is not known. At least originally, Jim Haff followed the bulk of Baum's story and kept Ojo in the south as you can see in his master research map, below. (Remember that the Club maps show east on the right hand side of the map.)

Jim Haff's placement of Ojo in the south on his original "research" map.

In all likelihood it was either Fred Meyer or Dick Martin that "corrected" Jim's careful research and argued for shifting Ojo and Pipt to the north. Fred had a persnickety obsession with certain details and I can imagine him focusing in on that word "Gillikin" and not letting go. Dick Martin seems to me to have approached the maps from an "ease of drawing" perspective much of the time. And the northern section of Haff's Munchkin Country was kind of empty and it's also possible that Dick urged the move to simply fill up that space on the map. This is all conjecture; we simply don't know at this point what happened, only that Jim Haff's careful design was radically altered.

This may seem like a big fuss over nothing. What does it matter that one map shows Ojo in the north and another shows Ojo in the south? Well, it turns out to matter a lot, much more than I even realized from an Oz history perspective. In the Oz Club choice, all you gain is the chance to honor Baum's unimportant slip of the pen, "Gillikin."

But I think much was lost by that choice. Whereas, if Ojo and Dr. Pipt are in the south, innumerable details in the stories of both Patchwork Girl and Ojo in Oz make sense in story-telling logic and in geographical unity. This should not be surprising when we now know Baum had already mapped the Land of Oz sometime in late 1912 or early 1913, according to Gottschalk, and we know that Thompson was using the text of Patchwork Girl (and both Baum's and her own maps) in the writing of Ojo in Oz, as you will see further below.

Let me take you on a tour through the southern Munchkin Country! We'll explore both the various texts and the various maps.

The trouble begins when Ojo and Unc Nunkie run out of food and have to leave their humble cottage deep in the dismal Blue Forest. Ojo says, "All I've ever seen of the great Land of Oz, Unc Dear, is the view of that mountain over at the south, where they say the Hammerheads live . . . and that other mountain at the north, where they say nobody lives."

Unc Nunkie reminds Ojo that the Crooked Magician Dr. Pipt and his wife live on that mountain at the north. Ojo continues, "They live high up on the mountain, and the good Munchkin Country, where the fruits and flowers grow, is just on the other side."

So Ojo and Unc Nunkie set out from their cottage in the Blue Forest, heading north to get to the good part of the Munchkin Country that lies on the other side of Dr. Pipt's mountain.

Here we come to Baum's slip of the pen where he writes:

At the foot of the mountain that separated the Country of the Munchkins from the Country of the Gillikins, the path divided.  One way led to the left and the other to the right — straight up the mountain. Unc Nunkie took this right-hand path and Ojo followed without asking why. He knew it would take them to the house of the Crooked Magician, whom he had never seen but who was their nearest neighbor.

Baum should not have written that phrase about the Country of the Gillikins. He has already explained that Doctor Pipt's mountain is separating Ojo and Nunkie's home from the more fruitful plains of the Munchkin Country, these fertile fields being Ojo and Nunkie's destination. Based on Baum's previous text detail, the paragraph should have said something like: "At the foot of the mountain that separated the fertile fields of the Munchkins from the Blue Forest, the path divided."

Remember Ojo and Nunkie are explicitly journeying from their home, where they have no food, to the good part of the Munchkin Country. And remember, too, they are not journeying to visit Doctor Pipt. The Doctor is just a rest stop on the journey over the mountain barrier.

Back to the story . . . Unc Nunkie and Ojo take the right-hand path up the mountain. It must be a rough or steep climb, because they made it from home to the bottom of the mountain by early morning, yet they will be trudging up the mountain most of the day. They stop for lunch at noon and then hike for another two hours before arriving at Doctor Pipt's.

After the Liquid of Petrifaction accident, Ojo, Scraps, and Bungle decide to set off to find a cure. They continue on the path over the mountain, the same route Ojo and Nunkie always planned to take, into the fertile fields of the Munchkin Country. Baum writes: "Ojo had never traveled before and so he only knew that the path down the mountainside led into the open Munchkin Country, where large numbers of people dwelt."

After reaching the foot of the mountain they come to a brook which Scraps jumps across. They journey on, and shortly before sundown they meet a Munchkin Woodchopper who invites them to spend the night. They decline, as Ojo wants to press on with their journey. They walk late into the night, eventually coming to the house with the disembodied voice. The next day, after encountering the live phonograph, they meet the Foolish Owl and Wise Donkey (the latter says he is from Mo). They then free the Woozy and finally arrive at the Yellow Brick Road. This is not Dorothy's Yellow Brick Road but another one.

Now you might be asking, why did you cover all of that stuff in so much detail? What does it have to do with maps? Well, my friends, allow me to show you!  The events described above fit quite wonderfully into the pre-Oz Club maps! And with some surprising synchronicity, IMHO!

Below is Baum's 1914 Oz map. I have added indicated the paths (as described in Baum's text) in yellow, showing the the path from Ojo's house to the base of the mountain that separates Ojo and Nunkie from the fertile plains of the Munchkin Country. You can see the fork, where the path divides. Ojo and Nunkie took the right-hand path up the mountain to Doctor Pipt.

Narrow yellow line shows paths in the Blue Forest and path followed by Ojo to the YBR

I also added in the "second" Yellow Brick Road as it was not shown on Baum's map. It would obviously not be so straight, but this is more of a diagram to show how well Baum's text can be plugged into his own map of Oz. Note that there is even a "brook" or river for Scraps to jump across after they get down out of the mountain. This brook is on the original map; I only added the yellow path and road.

I firmly believe Baum wrote the Patchwork Girl text using his Oz map as a guide, though the map would not be published until the next year's Oz book, Tik-Tok of Oz (1914). We already have evidence that Baum drew the map in late 1912 or so (see this previous blog post). But in another unidentified 1913 newspaper interview Baum states: "the Land of Oz has grown to be a very real place to me. I have even mapped it all out, and its characters are known to me quite intimately."

Let's add another layer into all this. Ruth Plumly Thompson had clearly reread Baum's Patchwork Girl of Oz in preparation for writing her "sequel" Ojo in Oz. Below is Thompson's map of Oz. It is a tracing of Baum's 1914 map in which she has worked in the locations from her own Oz titles. I have added in essentially identical versions of the paths and Yellow Brick Road.

Thompson's map showing Ojo and Dr. Pipt and her own Bandit's Forest and Seebania from OJO IN OZ.

I think this map shows Thompson wrote Ojo in Oz using the 1914 Baum map as reference. And she has placed Seebania (the kingdom Unc Nunkie and the infant Ojo fled) just to the left of the Blue Forest where Ojo and Nunkie lived. And look where a path to the left would lead on Thompson's map - toward Seebania! No wonder Unc Nunkie avoided it.

Now what I also love about Thompson's geography here is that it justifies why (from an Oz history perspective) there is a second Yellow Brick Road and what two places it connects. The Baum and Thompson geography in Patchwork Girl and Ojo strongly allows for this Yellow Brick Road to connect the Emerald City with the old capital of the Munchkin Country, Seebania! This may well be constructive conjecture on my part, but there can be no dismissing the fact that Thompson meant Ojo's home and Seebania to be in the same general vicinity.

Below is a similarly modified version of Walt Spouse's beautifully detailed "Wonderland of Oz Map" showing the paths and Yellow Brick Road. I have added in Seebania (where Thompson has positioned it) and labeled the "brook" that Scraps jumps over.

Modified version of Walt Spouse's 1932 "Wonderland of Oz" map.

There are many subtle details from both books that can take on added significance once one begins to see the entire geographical picture. Of course Unc Nunkie avoided the "left-hand" path on the way to the fertile Munchkin fields; he knew it went to Seebania. When the Wise Donkey informs Ojo and the gang that he is from Mo, it's not surprising when one realizes Mo is just across the desert from nearby Jinxland, as The Scarecrow of Oz (1916) makes clear.

I think it makes much more sense for Dr. Pipt to have moved almost as far as he could from his old home in the Gillikin Country (where he knew Mombi) to the very desolate southern corner of the Munchkin Country. And in kind, it makes more sense to me that elderly Unc Nunkie, who fled the court of Seebania with a literal babe in arms, took refuge in the dark Blue Forest in the first empty cottage he came upon. 

Now, I do not particularly think L. Frank Baum or Ruth Plumly Thompson necessarily worked this all out in this kind of detail. But a literary fantasy land finds a life of its own as layer upon layer of fictional history is built up, as maps get modified, as characters grow - whether looking for adventure or searching for their pasts.

I think Jim Haff understood this. He brought his professional skills as a cartographer to this project, and as we'll see in the coming posts, he largely succeeded in compiling the various bits of research into a logical, geographic whole. Note that I'm not certain whether Haff paid any attention to Thompson's hand-drawn map of Oz. Still, his Munchkin Country generally followed most of the story points above. Here's my yellow schematic laid over his "research" map:

He has Ojo and Doctor Pipt in the far southern Munchkin Country, Ojo must journey over the mountain (visiting with Doctor Pipt at the summit) then down into the fields of the Munchkin Country. He has even got the Yellow Brick Road essentially connecting the old capital of the Munchkin Country (Seebania) with the Emerald City. This is because he followed the story logic and geographic sense. (Here the "left-hand path" through the forest is unresolved, but since Baum never specified where that path leads, Haff made no error there.)

Sadly, someone convinced Haff that that single word "Gillikin" mattered; and that wrecked the entire geographical and story-telling logic of two books. Here is the way the beginnings of Ojo's journey look on the published Oz Club map.

Ojo's route (indicated in red) to the Yellow Brick Road on the Oz Club map.

So, Ojo and Unc Nunkie want to get from their home to the fertile plains of the Munchkin Country. So they journey in the opposite direction of the fertile plains and climb a steep mountain for no reason. Ojo visits Doctor Pipt whom they were not particularly going to see, climbs back down the mountain, and hikes on over to the Yellow Brick Road. This seems a bit nonsensical to me, but, joy! - at least the other side of Doctor Pipt's mountain is in the Gillikin Country!

When Ojo and Nunkie's cottage was shifted to the north, that choice led to a major reshuffling of much else in the Munchkin Country. Back when Haff had Ojo and Nunkie's cottage in the south he had placed the majority of the locations from Ojo in Oz (1933) in the north. Below is the relevant section of Haff's original map:

Haff's "research" map - Routes of OJO IN OZ: Ojo's party indicated in yellow; Dorothy's party in red.

Haff's "research" map puts these Ojo in Oz locations to the north of the Yellow Brick Road used in The Wizard of Oz, the orange line at the bottom of the image. The route followed by Ojo and Realbad I've indicated in yellow: Crystal Mountain, Tappy Town, Unicorners, and finally Moojer Mountain. And the route of Dorothy and her rescue party I've indicated in red: arrival in the Blue Forest, traveling the Rolling Road to Dickseyland, and then the route Reachard leads them on toward the Emerald City, though they run smack into Moojer Mountain before they get there.

I don't really see why Haff placed these locales in the northern Munchkin Country. But when he moved Ojo to the north in the published club map all of this Ojo in Oz stuff moved to the south. I suspect this is Dick Martin trying to keep the density of "map detail" well spread out. Once they moved Ojo's and Pipt's cottages to the north there was a paucity of detail in the southern Munchkin Country. But from an "Oz as a real place" perspective, simply filling up empty space is a dumb reason, IMHO.

Below you can see how this affected the routes from Ojo in Oz on the 1962 version of the Oz Club's map.

1962 Club map - Routes of OJO IN OZ: Ojo's party indicated in yellow; Dorothy's party in red.

All this is now far to the south of the Yellow Brick Road from The Wizard of Oz. For some reason, too, Dorothy's group (red) is now traveling north of Ojo and Realbad's group (yellow). I can't see the reason for this change. But on the whole, I do prefer that this is all so much closer to Seebania than the original Haff layout had it. It makes for a geographical unity. Of course there would be even more geographical unity if they had left Ojo and Nunkie in the south where they belong.

In later versions of the Oz Club maps (1967 and on) this area gets heavily reworked yet again. I'm not keen on Haff's shifting the arrival of Dorothy's party to a different forest, the one where she met the Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion back in The Wizard of Oz. This change seems to have been made to angle the Rolling Road so that it can dump Dorothy and her rescue party into the river, as described in the text of Ojo in Oz (see below).

2008 Club map - Routes of OJO IN OZ: Ojo's party indicated in yellow; Dorothy's party in red.

As you  might have noticed, this section of the Munchkin Country is now a lot denser, too. All of the many locations from Merry Go Round in Oz were added to the map in 1967.

There are some other Ojo-related glitches and omissions from the Club's map, too. There is no river for the unicorns to bathe in, the fairly large village that Ojo and Realbad pass through is not on the map, and various mountains seen by the travelers are nowhere to be seen. The biggest mistake still not discussed is that the Oz Club's map places the Bandit's Cave in the northern central Munchkin Country. The bandit's cave is not actually on Haff's "research" map, so its inclusion in the published map may have been a late decision.

It it pretty clear Thompson wanted the Bandit's Cave in the same vicinity as the other locales from Patchwork Girl and Ojo. She has shown the Bandit's Cave (though she calls it "Bandit's Forest") on her map, directly above the "U" in QUADLING. [Update: it is also possible to view the "Bandit's Forest" on Thompson's map as being the hideout of Vaga and his men in Grampa in Oz. See "comments" below.] But in any case, this southern location for the Badit's cave in Ojo in Oz is very strongly implied in the text. Mooj throws Realbad into a deep ravine near the castle of Seebania. Realbad is rescued by the bandits and taken back to their cave, where he is nursed back to health.

But Haff has placed the Bandit's Cave in the central northern section of the Munchkin Country, quite far from Seebania. This seems like quite a trek for the bandits to carry an injured Realbad! The clear implication in Thompson's text is that the bandits and their cave are relatively close to Seebania. Indeed, at the end of Ojo in Oz Realbad decides to make the Bandit's Cave a sort of Royal Hunting Lodge where he will spend two months each year, and he allows Snufferbux the bear to use it for hibernation each winter. Clearly Thompson thought that the Bandit's Cave was close to Seebania and under Realbad's jurisdiction, not on the other side of the Munchkin Country.

I went back and looked at Thompson's map and after my recent rereading of Ojo in Oz I am convinced she was using the map in her text descriptions. She has given us a lot of detail on the boundaries of Seebania:

Long ago . . . the Kings of Seebania ruled all the southern part of the Munchkin Country, and the city where you now find yourselves is Shamsbad, the capital. When Ozma succeeded to the throne . . . my father, then King of Seebania . . . relinquished [his claim] to all the small countries at the south and retired within the borders of Seebania itself. This kingdom, still an immense but little known tract of wild forest land, is bounded on the north by the Munchkin River and on the south by the Quadling Country.

Below is Thompson's hand-drawn map, with color added to reflect what she has described in the Ojo in Oz text above. There is a river to serve as the north border, the Quadling Country is to the south, and it is an immense tract of forest land when compared to the usual size of minor countries in Oz. Given Realbad's view that the Bandit's Cave is part of his domain I extended the light blue area of Seebania to include it. This way of viewing this map even has a Yellow Brick Road connecting Seebania to the Emerald City. Thompson has, of course, traced Baum's 1914 map as her starting point and Baum clearly meant the Yellow Brick Road shown here to be that of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. But I think the point has been made that we can get a pretty clear view of how Thompson saw her Ojo in Oz geography.

Thompson's Map of Oz showing Seebania as she described it in her OJO IN OZ text.

I am by no means saying there is only one solution to making an accurate map of Oz, but the Oz Club map makers seem to have never even considered this sort of contextual information. And in the end, considering the high-profile status the Oz Club maps have achieved, I think it is sort of a shame.

But then again, if the club's maps were perfect, look at all the fun I'd have missed writing this huge time-sap of a blog post!

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And after all that, how about an end note! I should mention the one other innocuous reason that I have seen given for moving Ojo to the north so I don't have to address this in the "comments."

When Ojo and Scraps meet the Scarecrow on the Yellow Brick Road the Scarecrow says he is on his way to visit Jinjur.
While this Jinjur reference is clearly more that a slip of the pen by Baum, it is also easily solved on the map. Baum's text shows Ojo and Co. are just inside the green area of the Emerald City. On Jim Haff's "research" map he has the two Yellow Brick Roads merge just after they reach these green lands. So the Scarecrow can indeed be walking away from the city to visit Jinjur without her having to live on the southern Yellow Brick Road (see Haff's map below).

Jinjur will find herself the focus of several legitimate "map" debates, but we'll save all that for a future post.

Map of Oz Monday - Oz Club Map of Oz 1962

Oz Club's "Marvelous Land of Oz" map - 1962 version. Click to enlarge.

Today we'll begin looking in detail at the Oz Club's set of maps. We explored the origins of these maps last week, so let's jump right in! The club reissued and revised their Oz maps a number of times over the years. The first version (seen above) was published in 1962. There was a new set with many revisions and additions published in 1967 and additional editions published in 1971, 1975, and 1980, and a full overhaul of the maps was carried out in 2008. You can tell the issue date of the main "Map of the Marvelous Land of Oz" in a given set by the roman numeral date in the yellow shield on the Tin Woodman decoration. Alas, the 2008 revision inadvertently retained the 1980 date.

This 1962 version is also the first map to include locations and geographical features from all of the then-39 Oz titles, from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) through The Hidden Valley of Oz (1951), as well as locales from the Little Wizard Stories of Oz (1913) and The Laughing Dragon of Oz (1936). The 1962 version of the "Explanatory Notes" that accompanies these maps fails to mention anything about what books are covered in the maps. Many of Baum's non-Oz works are referenced in the "Map of Surrounding Countries," but we will save that conversation for a later blog post.

I greatly admire these maps and the care James E. Haff put into them. Haff was a civilian cartographer for the U. S. Air Force and a consummate Oz aficionado. And lest there be any doubt, the actual design of the maps is the work of Jim Haff. Dick Martin's role was to prepare a clean inked version of the line art, lettering, etc. and then to prepare the color separations, which were done by hand.

Below you can see Jim Haff's working drawing for this map. You'll probably want to click on the image so you can see the level of detail better.

James E. Haff's working copy of the 1962 "Land of Oz" map. Click to enlarge.

Thankfully, the first thing to point out is that Haff restored Baum's Munchkins in the east, Winkies in the west orientation for the first time since 1920.  But this map has for the first time in any Oz map, made both those countries and those directions agree with our "real world" compass. From the notes I've read, it doesn't seem like the creators of the Oz Club map ever even considered that Baum's 1914 map might have been "correct."  I can understand if they made a different choice, but it is surprising to me that the idea that directions were in fact reversed in Oz was not an option that seems to have occurred to them.

Jim Haff took great pride in spots where he could "sync up" details from different Oz books. A prime example being his charting of the Winkie River. Haff wrote in his unpublished notes: "This results incidentally, in a rather neat coincidence: Suds and its adjacent lake and are an extension of the Dangerous Passage and Soap Slide on the Winkie River."

Suds, of course, is from Ruth Plumly Thompson's The Gnome King of Oz (1927) and the Dangerous Passage and Soap Slide are from John R. Neill's Lucky Bucky in Oz (1942). It is little touches like this that make the maps so much fun!

There are many details unique to the 1962 version of this map; things that will be adjusted and corrected in the 1967 and later editions. To point out only a few: Reera is north of Skeezer Lake in this map and she will eventually be moved south of Skeezer Lake; Torpedo Town, Stairway, and the Delves are further north in the 1962 map and will be shifted further south in later maps. Note, too, that this map came out the year before Merry Go Round in Oz was published, so none of the locations from that book are on the 1962 version of the map.

While Dick Martin has for the most part drawn in each locale exactly where Haff placed it, there were a few omissions, such as Martin's failing to draw in "Bottle Hill." The label is present on the '62 map but the actual hill is not (see full-color map above). I will more systematically itemize the changes made to later versions of the maps as we get to those discussions.

Central section of Haff's master Map of Oz. Click to enlarge.

For the most part the published maps strictly adhere to Haff's master map. But the Munchkin Country was radically altered before the map went to press in 1962. This is largely due to a disagreement over exactly where Unc Nunkie and Ojo's cottage is located. Personally, I think Haff's original choice to keep Ojo and Doctor Pipt in the southern Munchkin Country was correct. Whoever urged their shift to the north created an unfortunate blemish. I was going to address this messy business in today's blog, but when I sat down with the various maps and copies of The Patchwork Girl of Oz and Ojo in Oz, I found the issue complex enough to warrant an entire post. Guess what you'll be reading next week?

There is another unique feature of the 1962 version of the maps. Dick Martin did not use a black plate in his color separation. He seems to have used a deep royal blue instead of black (see below); the three other colors being process yellow, magenta, and cyan. It's a handsome choice, IMHO. According to David Greene, Dick Martin personally oversaw the printing of the maps in Chicago.

Note that the text is printed in royal blue in the 1962 version of the map.

Despite my admiration and fondness for the Haff/Martin maps they have a major weakness (for me anyway) in that they generally disregard the shapes of the countries as presented in Baum's 1914 Map of Oz. The Gillikin Country is much enlarged, the area of the Emerald City is greatly shrunk, a good deal of real estate is taken away from the Quadling Country, and the proportion of Oz is altered, making it somewhat more square than Baum's fairyland.

I prepared a little animation to show the transformation from Baum's map to the Oz Club map. I had to mirror-image the Oz Club map to make the two maps "morph." I have aligned the top northern borders of both maps, as that edge was the least changed. I think you can see how radically Haff and Martin altered Ozian geography.

I suspect Haff adjusted that bit of the yellow Winkie Country to creep down to the southern edge of Oz so that the route of the sand boat would end in the Winkie Country as is described in The Road to Oz, but  there seems little reason for Haff to have altered the shapes of the other countries. Personally, I would have just redrawn the path of the sand boat into an arc, or shifted Dunkiton and Foxville, rather than alter the shapes Baum gave to his Oz countries.

I asked Jim Haff about some of this back in the late 1970's and he replied that he just wanted to equalize the land masses of each country a bit and that he always thought the area around the Emerald City seemed too large. There is also a possibility that Haff and Martin wanted to make the map "different" from the Reilly & Lee maps so as to avoid any hint of copyright infringement. But both Jim and Dick had died before I thought of asking them about that possible reason. In any case the altered country shapes make the map less authentic to me.

It would be hard to deny the influence the Oz Club's maps have had. They have been available from the club for over fifty years, they have been reproduced in various fantasy works, and they were included in all of the Del Rey reprints of the Oz books.

Next week we'll explore exactly what they did to the Munchkin Country and check out a few missed opportunities as well. Click here for the next blog in this series.

Original ad for the Oz Club Maps in THE BAUM BUGLE, Christmas 1963.

I must express my gratitude to Cindy Ragni of Wonderful Books of Oz.com for her help and generosity in sharing scans of Jim Haff's original "research" maps and many other helpful materials she has directed my way.

Map of Oz Monday - Origins of the Oz Club Maps

If any Oz maps can come close to challenging Baum's own maps of 1914 it is the highly detailed set produced by the International Wizard of Oz Club. We will spend the next several weeks discussing these maps' evolution, and their many pros and cons.

But I think a look at some of the origins of the Oz Club maps might be in order before we begin our in-depth analysis. The Oz Club maps were researched and designed by James E. Haff and drawn by Oz illustrator Dick Martin.

James E. Haff (left) and Dick Martin (right) creators of the Oz Club's maps.

The Oz Club's maps were first published in 1962. Jim Haff certainly had an affinity for this sort of meticulous note-taking and puzzle solving; indeed he was a civilian cartographer for the U. S. Air Force. But the Oz Club's map project was begun by Robert R. Pattrick, who was already making notes and preliminary Oz maps when he died in August 1960 at the age of thirty-three. The Oz Club, and especially club secretary Fred M. Meyer, did all they could to honor Pattrick's legacy, and the "Explanatory Notes" for the Club's map set pays homage to Pattrick's preliminary efforts, stating: 

The International Wizard of Oz Club is especially indebted to the late Robert R. Pattrick, whose enthusiastic and scholarly studies on Oz geography blazed the trail for the maps and were of immeasurable aid in their compilation.

One of Robert R. Pattrick's Oz maps - Click to enlarge.

Above you can see the only Pattrick map I know of that still survives. You will note that he has flipped Oz so that the Munchkins are on the right hand side of Oz and in the east. While there is no compass rose, Pattrick regarded Baum's 1914 compass as an aberration. Oddly, Pattrick did not flip the rest of the continent, thus it still generally matches the 1914 "Surrounding Countries" map. I believe he did this mainly to keep the map consistent with the text of Ozma of Oz where the Land of Ev is supposed to be across the desert from the Munchkin Country. Correcting for this minor textual inconsistency plays havoc with many of the later Oz books, but that seems to be what he did. I am unsure why Pattrick, the supposed Oz and Baum scholar, failed to make Hiland and Loland into an island and has made Regos and Coregos much smaller than Pingaree, when in the book Rinkitink in Oz it is quite clear they are much larger islands.

A few other things to note in Pattrick's map: he has added Thompson's Corumbia, Corabia, and Samandra to the northern Winkie country. Their shape and placement is nearly identical on the Oz Club map but Corabia and Samandra have switched places. Pattrick has also added Pumperdink, Mudge and Ragbad to the map. As we'll see when we get to the Oz Club's map of "Surrounding Countries," Menankypoo will be where Pattrick placed it, yet yet Jim Haff will have chosen to move Rash to the north

Several choices made by Pattrick were preserved in the Oz Club's maps, most obviously the combining of the Land of Ev and the Nome King's Dominion. Note the cute sign pointing the way to Ozamaland. Dick Martin and Jim Haff used that same solution for dealing with the very distant location (and indeed Pattrick's same little sign buoy!) on the club's "Map of the Countries Surrounding Oz".

One other aspect of Pattrick's map to take note of is that he has drawn the entire continent of Nonestica, though it is a bit uninspired, essentially just a modification of the original 1914 rectangular map (see his map above).

Now, there is one map that I still need to share with you as a progenitor of the Oz Club maps. This is the map drawn by Dick Martin for The Visitors from Oz (1960).

Dick Martin's Map of the Land of Oz from THE VISITORS FROM OZ.

While this map is only part of an illustration, it holds many interesting details. First it is clearly a modified photostat of the1914 Baum map; the lettering matches the original map exactly. But Martin has also provided a coastline for Nonestica and a much more interesting one than Pattrick had drawn. I especially like the long peninsula jutting out from Merryland (click the map above to see it more clearly). For me, details like that spark the imagination! There is no good textual reason to add it (no such peninsula or harbor is referenced in Baum's Dot and Tot of Merryland), but it adds detail; and detail makes for reality. And to me, believing in the map is critical to me if said map is purporting to be the real Land of Oz. One oddity in the map is that Martin has moved Pyramid Mountain to the land of the Mifkets, just south of the Quadling Country. I suspect Martin simply moved an existing detail (here obscured by the Scarecrow's hat) to a more visible location to add detail to the map.

More interestingly, Martin is the first person to have added Baum's Isle of Yew (from the 1903 The Enchanted Island of Yew) to the Ozziverse (see map above), though it is shown here in a different location (south of the Forest of Burzee) than it will be on the Oz Club map. But note, too, that Martin has also added some unidentified islands both off the coast of Merryland, and also in the vicinity of Pingaree. There is another detail I had not spotted until I enlarged this section of the map below, which is that Martin has indicated the mainland extends out to the east at the southern border of Rinkitink (see below).

Detail showing several unnamed islands added by Martin.

When I joined the Oz Club in March 1977, the first thing I ordered was a set of the Oz Club's maps. My parents were in the midst of separating; and I was burying my anxiety in Oz research and Oz collecting. A year or so earlier I had begun a large four-foot-wide topographical Oz map with lichen trees and salt-dough mountains. Mapping the fairyland I was taking refuge in made it seem all the more real I suppose. Below you can see young me with my Oz Map birthday cake!

Me with my Map of Oz birthday cake a few months after I got my first set of Oz maps.

Oh, what a photograph! I had also begun requesting sale-lists via SASE from the Club's "Oz Trading Post," and as the Ozzy fates would have it, the first two things I bought were purchased from Oz Club map designer James E. Haff: a copy of Magical Mimics in Oz and a copy of the 1920 Reilly & Lee Map of Oz. I was very excited to see and own a "real" and "old" Oz map! The club's map set didn't arrive until after my mom, sister, and I had moved out of my childhood home at the end of April.

I must admit I loved the Oz Club's maps. They went up on my wall and stayed there pretty much throughout my teen years. One aspect of the maps that Oz fans today might not take into account is that the maps also functioned as a window into the post-Baum Oz series. Back then all of the post-Baum Oz titles were out of print and difficult to find. I had never yet read any of the post-Baum Oz books when the maps arrived and I remember spending lots of time trying to imagine what book each odd location might be from, and then, following along on the maps as I eventually read each of the later twenty-six Oz books.

Next week we will begin our detailed look at the Oz Club's "Map of the Marvelous Land of Oz" as originally released in 1962. So pack your rucksack, a canteen of Ozade, and make sure you have your compass, I'm sure it will come in handy at pointing us in the right direction!

Take me to the next Map of Oz Monday blog!

You may also go back to the beginning of this multi-part series by clicking here.

Map of Oz Monday - Under Baum's Directions

Next week we will begin our discussion of the Oz Club's set of maps. But before we start on that part of our journey I wanted to revisit, and I hope strengthen, one of my views on the geography and orientation of the Land of Oz: there is no mistake in directions on Baum's original 1914 map of Oz. He fully intended that Oz have a backwards compass, with east on the left and west on the right.

Baum's 1914 Map of Oz with non-standard compass points.

I am not the only Oz fan to prefer Baum's quirky directional sense. Bill Campbell on The Oz Enthusiast blog said of Baum's 1914 map:  "This is unlike any standard map, but Oz is a magical land - perhaps that is simply how things work there! . . . I still like the original map in Tik-Tok with its unique directions - that's how I think the map should be!"

Oz fans long surmised that Baum probably had a hand in drawing the 1914 map and sent it in to the publisher where it was redrawn by a staff artist. Yet there was never any proof that Baum had a hand in the creation of the 1914 map. But a couple years ago I found verification when I was given access to the papers of Louis F. Gottschalk, composer of the 1913 musical The Tik-Tok Man of Oz and of the scores to the 1914 Oz Films.

Gottschalk and Baum circa 1913 - Collection of David Maxine.

In 1925 Louis F. Gottschalk wrote his memories of watching L. Frank Baum draw the Oz map that was included as the endpapers of Tik-Tok of Oz (1914). Here's Gottschalk's recollection:

I remember when we were at work on the Tik-Tok Man of Oz, Frank took a day off to answer at least 100 letters that had accumulated during the previous week. One little girl wrote and asked him for a map of the land of Oz saying she wished to follow them in their travels. In my presence he made a map of the mythical country of Oz and in the next Oz book the map appeared. “I do so love the map of Oz” wrote the little girl, “for now I can follow the Scarecrow, Tin-Woodman, and Tik-Tok and Betsy and Pumpkin head when the cyclone picks them up here and drops them down there in another country.”

Gottschalk's full-length memorial to Baum, which includes this passage, was published for the first time in the Winkie Con 50 Souvenir Program which is available here: Order a copy of the Winkie Con 50 Souvenir book.

So we have confirmation that Baum designed the 1914 map of the Land of Oz. To me, knowing that Baum was responsible makes this map the most authentic of all Oz maps. That, of course, does not address why the map has east on the left and west on the right. But it is too deliberate and if it was a mistake, it was too easily fixed. As I said in this previous post:

Neither Baum, nor his wife, nor the artist who redrew it, nor John R. Neill, nor the publisher ever said, "Hey LFB, you got your compass points wrong!" If Baum had some moment of directional dyslexia when he drew the rough map, there are just too many eyes and too many steps, from his sketchy doodles to finished drawing, to making proofs, to printing the book, for this not to have been EASILY corrected. If it wasn't corrected - it wasn't an error - thus, this is how Baum viewed Oz.

Two years after the map was first published we get confirmation from Baum himself that this is how he viewed Oz and that it wasn't simply a typesetting or artistic error. On September 6, 1916, Baum submitted another map along with the manuscript of The Lost Princess of Oz to the publisher and in the accompanying cover letter he stated:

You will find a "Map of the Search for the Lost Princess," which I would like to have redrawn and printed in black-and-white and placed in the fore part of the book. Nothing we ever did made such a hit with the kiddies as the maps of Oz we once used for endpapers, and I think this present map worthwhile on that account.

So Baum confirms that he drew this map (admittedly to be neatened up by a staff artist), but it preserves the Winkie Country "on the right and in the West" orientation and other geographical details of the 1914 map. Baum has even labeled the branches of the Winkie River, which as you'll read below, becomes very important.

Map of Oz from THE LOST PRINCESS OF OZ (1917).

In the text of Lost Princess Baum writes the following:

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 . . .

And a little later he writes:

In the course of a few hours, however, they had left the tilled fields [around the Emerald City] and entered the country of the Winkies. . . . Long before night the travellers had crossed the Winkie River near to the Scarecrow's tower (which was now vacant) and had entered the rolling prairie where few people live.

Here we have Baum himself using this map in his written text and describing the travelers leaving the Emerald City, moving left to right on the map, and getting to the "East Branch" of the Winkie River before they get to the "West Branch." A careful reading of the text makes it clear that Baum intended the text to reflect the map - including the reversed compass directions.

It seems very clear that this is simply how Baum saw the Land of Oz. Why he never made more of it I can't imagine. Perhaps he just thought it was quaint or magical. At one time I would have suggested that Baum was bad at directions and simply drew the map with the Winkies and Munchkins reversed. And then, rather than start over, he chuckled and fixed it by labeling the compass to suit his drawing. Perhaps that was how it happened. But it must have become a very deliberate choice, as it could have been fixed at any point in the book's production process at Reilly and Britton. So I'm left with the firm belief that this map shows Oz how it was meant to be.

But I am curious what Baum's hand-drawn map of Oz would have looked like. How detailed was it? Was it a scribble or quite precise? Baum's original map does not seem to survive. But I think I can show you a similar map that I believe was in fact drawn by Baum himself.

This is the map included in Baum's Boy Fortune Hunters in Panama (1908) which has been reprinted by Hungry Tiger Press as Sam Steele's Adventures: the Amazing Bubble Car. If you're interested you can order a copy below! In that book's text the map is found in the diary of  the recently murdered Maurice Kleppisch. The map was almost certainly drawn by Baum himself and submitted with his manuscript to Reilly & Britton. We know Baum was artistic and a good craftsman, and I find it impossible to believe that the publisher had a staff artist draw this map for an inconsequential boys series book. This is simply Baum having fun. And since the map didn't need to be as "polished" as the Oz map would need to be, Baum's pen-and-ink skill were totally adequate. Here's that map.

Baum's map from THE BOY FORTUNE HUNTERS IN PANAMA (1908).

I think you can see there are many similarities to the 1914 Map of the Land of Oz. The way rivers are drawn, forests delineated by little little "x" marks, the "hash mark" mountains, and indeed even the lettering of the oceans which runs top to bottom in differing directions for each ocean - exactly like the labeling of the Deadly Desert on the 1914 map.

Granted, how many ways are there to draw a map? But if Baum drew as detailed and finished Oz maps as he seemingly drew for The Boy Fortune Hunters in Panama, then I think we can say Baum himself is responsible for the detail in the Oz maps, whether the undulations of rivers or the placement of the Winkie and Munchkin countries.

Next Monday we will begin our discussion of the Oz Club's Maps of Oz.
Click here to go to our next installment of Map of Oz Monday!

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Map of Oz Monday - Merry Go Round in Oz

Today we explore the mapping of Merry Go Round in Oz (1963). Chronologically this post should come in the midst of our discussions on the Oz Club's maps, which were first published in 1962. But structurally, it seems best to finish our discussion of all the maps in the main forty Oz titles before we delve into the Oz Club's maps.

Merry Go Round in Oz was written in 1963 by Newbery Honor author Eloise Jarvis McGraw and her daughter Lauren McGraw Wagner. Many Oz fans consider it one of the very best post-Baum titles.

While we will certainly talk about the map included in the forematter of that book, the bulk of this post will be about the map that wasn't included in the book.

So let's look at the included map. This map was drawn by the book's illustrator, Dick Martin; but it was very much influenced by a map or maps drawn by the McGraws. We'll discuss that further below. My first observation is that Dick Martin did not pay any careful attention to the delineation of the Quadling/Munchkin border. He has simply drawn a curvy line.

Dick Martin's illustrated map from Merry Go Round in Oz (1963).

As you can see, the map splits the difference between a traditional "flat" map and an "illustrated" pictorial map, i.e. the Easter Bunny's Cave is indicated by a basket and eggs. Below you can see how Martin rendered the same locations in the later printings of the Oz Club maps, in the "flat" style.

Locations from Merry Go Round in later printings of the Oz Club maps.

On March 27, 1963, Reilly & Lee wrote to McGraw and told her that they were accepting the manuscript of Merry Go Round in Oz; and on April 1st, McGraw wrote a lengthy letter back to the publisher. Halfway through the letter McGraw wrote:

Speaking of illustrations, a couple of years ago my daughter, Laurie [co-author Lauren Lynn McGraw], drew a map of Oz for her own amusement, placing on it all the little countries and castles and so on that she could find by looking through old Oz books. It is an "illustrated" map; that is, the little country of Ragbad is indicated by a patchwork quilt, Pumperdink by a portrait of Kabumpo, Monday Mountain by blue hills and a washtub, etc. It's charming and gave me the notion that just such a thing would be fun for endpapers in the book. The territory covered by the travelers in this book could of course be drawn in, with their routes traced in dotted lines. Laurie's map reverses the positions of the Munchkin Country and the Winkie Country and contains a few other errors, but if you want a corrected version as a suggestion and source material for the artist, let me know. She or I one can easily draw an accurate one. In any case, using a map as endpapers may not appeal to you or the artist; please don't think I'm trying to urge it on - merely an idea.

It will turn out that Lauren McGraw's directions were correct, or at least, that she was using the Baum "Munchkins in the East" directions. Eloise was more deeply rooted in Thompson's Oz and was more familiar with Thompson's predominant "Munchkins in the West" viewpoint. But back to our discussion: Merry Go Round editor Maxine Rieckoff didn't address the map idea until her reply of April 24, 1963:

When I wrote you before, I realized after the letter had gone that I had not mentioned Laurie's maps. I think they would make charming end papers and would like to have you send them on. Incidentally Laurie may not have made a mistake in the positions of the Munchkin Country and the Winkie Country. Dick Martin told me a mistake had been made in the printing of certain maps which was later corrected. He gave me a couple corrected maps to send Laurie.

These are no doubt the then-very-new Oz Club maps that Dick Martin had just finished drawing only a few months earlier. Below are Dick Martin's typed notes on Oz Geography which he stresses are "small technicalities, but important."

Dick Martin's notes to McGraw on "Oz geography" -  Click to enlarge

Clearly Martin is trying hard to prevent conflicts with the new Oz Club maps he and Jim Haff worked so hard on. He mainly points out places where McGraw needs to simply reverse east and west. But he also explains that one can't pass the Scarecrow's Tower and Tin Woodman's castle on one's way in the Munchkin Country as both structures are in the Winkie Country. Lastly he tells McGraw that there is no Yellow Brick Road where she placed one as a border dividing the Munchkin and Quadling countries.

Note that McGraw dutifully check-marked each of Martin's suggestions as she implemented them. McGraw wrote Rieckoff back on May 12, 1963: "All [Mr. Martin's] geography suggestions are taken care of now. . . . I am very eager to see how Dick Martin will interpret my characters. I'm sure, fundamentalist that he is, he will see them much as I do."

On May 18, 1963, McGraw wrote:

The map will go off to you today. As it turned out, I drew it myself; Laurie lives twenty miles or so from here, doesn't drive, and has an extremely active 7-month-old son to take care of. I could see the new version of the map wasn't going to get done in time for publication if she had to do it. Anyway, it was my idea to revamp it and submit it for possible use as endpapers, so it was really my responsibility anyhow.

I had a wonderful time for a couple of days and evenings, doing it - nearly blinding myself but enjoying every minute of it. I've corrected the location of various places, in line with the "official" Oz map you sent, and of course added all the places mentioned in Merry Go Round in Oz; otherwise it's merely a recopying of Laurie's old map. Therefore it's still a collaboration, and I've signed both our names to it.

I've no idea whether it will be usable or not, but if possible, I'd like to have the original back when everybody's finished with it there. I got rather fond of it while I was working on it, and think it would be fun to have on my study wall. By the way, see what you think of the Halidom coat-of-arms I invented. Upper left hand corner of the map. Those things in the left half are a trefoil (fleur de lys), a quatrefoil, and a cinqefoil.

Sadly there is a break in the editorial correspondence until July 12, 1963. Rieckoff explains that she is freshly out of the hospital, but there is no indication from her on what happened to McGraw's map drawing. But the answer can be found in Dick Martin's correspondence with McGraw. On June 12, 1963, Martin wrote:

Lauren's map is a great addition - the Oz fans will be especially pleased with it. I copied the section covered in the story, and the travelers' routes, labeling it "Diagram of a Journey - drawn by Robin Brown & helped by Dorothy and Fess." It will be in the front of the book. By the way, I'd like to include Lauren's drawing in the "Oziana Exhibit" at the Oz convention next week, as it will be of great interest. I'll return it promptly afterwards.

McGraw wrote Martin back on June 30, 1963:

The map is actually my drawing - based on an old one Laurie did once for her own entertainment. Both of us love to draw - in fact, I spent ten years, in my younger days, learning to be a muralist and portrait-painter. . . . Anyway both Laurie and I are flattered that it will be (or has been, I guess, by now) exhibited at an Oz convention.

One must assume Martin dutifully sent the map back to McGraw after the Oz convention. But Eloise never mentioned the map in her various Oz-related interviews later, it was not hanging in her study when I visited, and Lynn McGraw no longer knows where either her mother's or her own Oz map ended up.

I am glad that a portion of the McGraw map got used in Merry Go Round in Oz, but I really wish that the McGraw map had been used as the endpapers to the book as was originally planned!

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