60 Years of MERRY GO ROUND IN OZ

Grabbing the Brass Ring

The Creation of Merry Go Round in Oz - Part I

Today is the sixtieth anniversary of the publication of Eloise Jarvis McGraw's and Lauren McGraw Wagner's Merry Go Round in Oz, the final title in the official Oz series. Publication had been set for October 21, 1963, but delays at the bindery meant that the first copies did not arrive at Reilly & Lee until October 24th — which for today's post I am considering the publication date. 

Many children’s series end in a fizzle. Sometimes the original author seems to lose steam or focus, such as in the Mushroom Planet books by Eleanor Cameron and the Freddy the Pig books by Walter R. Brooks. Sometimes the sequels are written by less-talented relatives, like the follow-ups to Robert O’Brien’s Mrs. Frisby and Rats of NIMH. And sometimes ghostwriters simply churn out titles so that the publisher can squeeze a few more dollars from a dying franchise, as in so many of the boys and girls series from the early twentieth century.

But occasionally, magic happens. In 1959 the Henry Regnery Company purchased Reilly & Lee, primarily to obtain the rights to publish the Oz books. Their efforts at revitalizing the Oz series began small and grew. In 1960 they published The Visitors from Oz. In 1961 they brought out four Oz picture book abridgements and To Please a Child, the first biography of L. Frank Baum. By 1962 Regnery/Reilly & Lee were considering adding a new, full-length Oz adventure to the main series. What better luck could they have had than to be contacted out of the blue by a highly respected, two-time Newbery Honor author inquiring if they would like to see an Oz manuscript? 

That author, of course, was Eloise Jarvis McGraw.

Like Royal Historians Jack Snow and Rachel Cosgrove Payes, McGraw had grown up with the Oz books.  She read and owned many of the Baum books, but her favorites were those by Ruth Plumly Thompson[i]. Which, as we will see, had a strong influence on McGraw’s Oz writing.

Eloise Jarvis McGraw circa 1963

McGraw was born December 9, 1915, and that made her the perfect age to be a Ruth Plumly Thompson fan. She was six when the first Thompson Oz book, The Royal Book of Oz, appeared. McGraw’s favorite Oz book was Ruth Plumly Thompson’s Grampa in Oz (1924), published when McGraw was eight years old. At the time of the writing of Merry Go Round in Oz McGraw was living in Sherwood, Oregon, on a filbert orchard, about twenty miles south of Portland.

Her daughter, Lauren Lynn McGraw, was born August 15, 1944, and grew up reading the Oz books. And, like her mother, she considered Grampa in Oz her favorite Oz book. She was seventeen when she and her mom began writing Merry Go Round in Oz and nineteen when it was published. She had married J. Robert Wagner in February 1962 and the young couple was living across the driveway from her parents' home in a small A-frame that Eloise and her husband, fellow children's author William Corbin, had built a few years earlier.

Lauren McGraw Wagner circa 1963

The seeds for Merry Go Round in Oz were planted when McGraw was asked to write a couple short biographical entries for the children’s reference series Childcraft in 1961[ii]. McGraw offered to write entries on Vincent Van Gogh and L. Frank Baum. She could find no information on Baum’s life in the local library, so she wrote an editor at Baum’s publisher Reilly & Lee: “I introduced myself, and begged for any crumb of information on Baum. She [the editor] sent me To Please a Child, said she knew my work, and invited me to send her any homeless manuscripts I cared to. I wrote a grateful ‘thank you’ and that was the end of it until Lynn and I got to playing ‘Oz books should be like this’ one day a year or so later. Knowing precisely where this unwritten manuscript might find a home played a large part in my decision to try writing it.”[iii]

That game of “Oz books should be like this” began during the summer of 1962 when McGraw’s daughter, Lauren McGraw Wagner, was pregnant with her first child and decided she would reread the Oz books. At some point, Lauren picked up The Scalawagons of Oz, a title she had never read as a child. The McGraw family had somehow acquired it from Lauren's cousin Gayla McCreight. Wagner was shocked at how bad and un-Ozzy Scalawagons was. Soon she and her mother were picking the book apart, dissecting and analyzing, ending with the realization that “we could write a better Oz book!” 

McGraw remembered the offer from Reilly & Lee and sent an inquiry about their interest in an Oz manuscript. The publisher responded that they’d be very much interested—and McGraw and her daughter began writing Merry Go Round in Oz. Despite the Scalawagons incident, McGraw said later, “It never occurred to us to go back and reread the few tattered [Oz books] in my attic to make sure we’d do it right. We knew what an Oz book was like—what one ought to be like. The Oz books had merged in both our memories into a sort of happy blur—the generic Oz book.”

Eloise Jarvis McGraw & Lauren Lynn McGraw circa 1950.

McGraw had published her first book, Sawdust in his Shoes, in 1950. By 1963 McGraw had written four additional children’s books (two of which were Newbery Honor titles), an adult novel, and a book on fiction writing. McGraw and Wagner had never collaborated before—indeed, Wagner was only seventeen when they began writing the book. Wagner explains how they worked together:

I was living in the A-frame during at least most of the time we were writing the book. We’d get together every few days to brainstorm; figure out the plot and the characters, names of the countries and people (we had great fun with Halidom; I’d been reading about heraldry, and was full of terms like “bar sinister,” Annelet, Gules, Wyvver, Flittermouse, and so on). I think I’m the one who suggested a country of fox hunters, but I could be wrong about that.

Anyway, after we got all that figured out, we did an outline of the plot—that was Mom’s method at the time, though she got a bit looser eventually. Then we’d rough out each chapter, making sure that our three groups were getting closer to each other but not running into each other before it was time—I think that might have been why we had to have a map, which I drew: first rough, then eventually the version that appears in the book.

One of Wagner's cleverest additions to the story was the new Oz character, the Flittermouse. 

Whenever Flitter had to recite one of his poems, I wrote it, making them smarter after the first circlet was discovered. Essentially, we’d get together to brainstorm and outline, then Mom would go to her typewriter and write the chapter. Then I’d read it, and we’d meet again to discuss it. Living just across the driveway from each other was very handy.

I’d say the plotting process was about 50/50. My mother [did] most of the actual writing; I [did] a lot of editing and critiquing. [iv]

In September 1962, Wagner took a short break from working on the Oz book to give birth to her first son, Christopher. 

Unlike the other writers of the Oz books, McGraw preserved most of her manuscript materials: outlines, character studies, and manuscripts. So, with Merry Go Round in Oz we have a unique opportunity to explore the writing and editorial processes of one of the official Oz titles.

The earliest surviving notes I’ve been able to examine are the fifteen pages of character studies and place descriptions. All is pretty much as in the book, save a few details. Fess’s age is given as twelve to thirteen, Queen Farthingale is originally Queen Martingale, and the Unicorn is Fess’s pet. Also, Halidom was pretty well developed before McGraw created the adjoining country, Troth. McGraw describes ten-year-old Robin Brown as “. . . self-sufficient, quiet, noticing (like Oliver [Twist]) . . .”

The earliest draft of the story I’ve examined is McGraw’s undated chapter breakdown. The three-page breakdown shows how economically McGraw has worked things out, mapping out exactly what she needs to accomplish in each chapter, as in her description of chapter two:

Robin and Merry get acquainted, look around them, try to figure out what happened. Characterize Merry, Robin, bring in more about Robin’s background, his love of King Arthur tales and horses. Robin starts training Merry to go in straight line; she is catching on nicely when Fox-hunters appear; before the two can get away they are surrounded.

The chapter breakdown follows the published book very closely, though some of the elements are arranged a little differently. McGraw stays with Robin and Merry for the first four breakdown chapters—only introducing us to the Halidom storyline in breakdown chapter five, after Robin and Merry have already escaped View-Halloo. In the published book McGraw leaves Robin and Merry captives of the Fox hunters (keeping the reader in suspense) while she introduces us to the Halidom storyline—only returning to View Halloo to free Robin and Merry after the Halidom group is already off on their adventure.

McGraw developed a tight timeline for the story. She wanted the actions of Robin and Merry breaking free of the merry-go-round in Oregon to coincide with the theft of Circlet Two in Halidom. She also needed the story to end on the Saturday night before Easter so the Oz celebrities could return to the Emerald City for the Easter Egg Hunt the next morning. There are many notations in the chapter breakdown marking the time of day and number of nights on the road—even including a small calendar showing that the story begins on a Wednesday morning. Eventually McGraw found she needed one extra night in Oz and she changed the McGudgeys’ visit to the carnival in chapter one from Wednesday morning to Tuesday night. These notations are likely from late in the writing process, as in one of the complete manuscripts the action still begins on “a fine April Saturday.” McGraw changed it to “a fine April evening” in the published book. This timeline is verified by a careful reading of the book, marking down nights on the road, and by Sir Greves’s mentioning that his betrayal of Halidom had occurred “last Tuesday.”[v] 

There is also a forty-page outline that closely follows the book as we know it. Many times sentences of description in the outline are repeated without change in the published book. But there are a few subtle differences between this outline and the book: in the outline Robin’s training in View-Halloo was administered by a Whip (the Prime Minister) who seems to be human; in the published book the trainer has become Spots, the dog. In the outline Troth’s chief industry was making musical instruments, training musicians, composition, etc., and Halidom’s specialty was the Science of Genealogy, which morphed briefly into manuscript illumination; in the published book Troth has become a maker of Blue Armor and Halidom a designer of Coats of Arms (though Halidom still has a University of Genealogy). Fess’s friend and fellow page, Barry, was originally two stable boys named Bodkin and Scutcheon, Sir Greves had a wife, and at the end of the outline King Herald gave the Unicorn to Fess as a present. And the Roundabout delicacy, Pi, was originally called, rather clunkily, pi R².  

The manuscript was submitted to Reilly & Lee through McGraw’s agent, Marilyn Marlow[vi], and the editorial correspondence begins on March 27, 1963, when Reilly & Lee editor Maxine Rieckhoff[vii] writes McGraw: “Congratulations to you and Lauren on the fine job you did on Merry Go Round of Oz! [sic] I am delighted with the manuscript.” Rieckhoff continues, “The most urgent problem facing us now is the selection of an illustrator. Our sales manager insists that the illustrations must be in the classic Oz style, but there is some dissension about that.”

Cover of The Littlest Star (1961)

The dissension was in part Rieckhoff’s strong dislike of the work of Dick Martin, especially the four 1961 Oz abridgements, which according to Martin she found “a little too wild and wooly.”[viii] Jean Kellogg, who had written the adaptations of The Visitors from Oz and the four Oz abridgements, interceded for Martin, suggesting that Rieckhoff look at Martin’s more delicate work in The Littlest Star (1961). Martin did a few sample illustrations that in his own words, “curbed [his] natural tendency toward slam-bam flamboyance . . .”[ix]

But before Martin was hired, the McGraws weighed in on the illustrator debate on April 1, 1963: “Laurie and I both side with your sales manager on the matter of illustrations. As old Oz fans, we find it impossible to imagine Ozma or the Cowardly Lion or Dorothy pictured in some new (possibly improved) way. In this we are reacting as children, who are rock-ribbed conservatives in such matters. . . . It seems to me the book wouldn’t seem like a real Oz-book if the pictures were very different. I have not even seen any of the ‘new’ Oz-books (later than the Ruth Plumly Thompson ones) except Neill’s Scallywagons of Oz [sic].”

McGraw goes on to discuss the title of the book, which she explains is merely her working title. And gives Reilly & Lee a free hand at retitling the book. McGraw also mentions that “a couple of years ago my daughter, Laurie, drew a map of Oz.” The map was an “illustrated” map, Ragbad 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 the endpapers of the book. . . . Laurie’s map reverses the positions of the Munchkin Country and the Winkie Country[x] and contains a few other errors . . . [but] she or I can easily draw an accurate one.” 

On April 12, 1963, Rieckhoff wrote back with the first round of editorial suggestions. Rieckhoff felt they “could do with a little less of Howzatagin’s activities. . . . Perhaps his animal infirmary could be cut since it adds nothing to further the plot and the reader already has a good idea of the loneliness and kindliness of the old man.” She also thought the “sign bit” was a little overdone. In this letter we also find it is Rieckhoff who suggested merging the original two Emerald City chapters into one (the current Chapter Ten). This involved cutting a large section where McGraw introduced a number of Ozian celebrities that don’t otherwise figure in the book.

To Read Part II  Click Here

Special thanks to Lynn McGraw for sharing her memories of writing Merry Go Round in Oz; and thanks to Atticus Gannaway for sharing an image of the dust wrapper of The Littlest Star.

---

[i] Eloise Jarvis McGraw, “On Wearing Well” in The Baum Bugle 34, no. 3 (Winter 1990): 3-5.

[ii] Eloise Jarvis McGraw, “The Magic Land” in Childcraft: The How and Why Library, vol. 13, People to Know (Chicago: Field Enterprises Educational Corporation, 1964): 218-225.

[iii] Eloise Jarvis McGraw in a letter to the author, September 9, 1995.

[iv] Lauren Lynn McGraw in an email to the author, October 24, 2023. Lauren Lynn McGraw in a letter to the author, March 7, 1980.

[v] Sir Greves mentions this on page 276 of the book. Easter in 1963 fell on April 14th—thus Robin Brown's adventures (and the book) begin on April 9, 1963. McGraw likely shortened the story by several days—changing Saturday to the following Tuesday—because Robin can reach Roundabout only after the oracle gives Prince Gules’s party the verse about the “future” king.

[vi] Marilyn E. Marlow was a highly respected and influential literary agent. Her other clients included Robert Cormier, Jane Yolen, and S. E. Hinton, among many others.

[vii] Maxine Rieckhoff, born October 31, 1905, died May 19, 1986.

[viii] Dick Martin, “The Road to Reilly and Lee” in The Baum Bugle 27, no. 2 (Autumn 1983): 4.

[ix] Ibid.

[x] Wagner’s map, in fact, had the positions correct, with the Munchkins in the east and the Winkies in the west. But McGraw, following Thompson’s compass directions, assumed her daughter’s map was in error.

Denslow Draws Again!

I have discovered some wonderful things in my research for my forthcoming book on the 1903 Broadway Wizard of Oz musical, and today's blog shares two of them. Though, to be fair, it was my husband, Eric Shanower, who actually discovered these a couple years ago while he was helping me track down some information on the production of the stage show. 

So, voila! I'm delighted to share two previously unknown Wizard of Oz illustrations by W. W. Denslow. These fine drawings were published in a newspaper interview with Denslow in the summer of 1904 about the forthcoming Pearl and the Pumpkin musical. In the interview Denslow also discussed his contributions to The Wizard of Oz musical, how he developed his character designs and sold the show to Fred Hamlin. Whether these were pre-exisiting drawings shared with the newspaper, or whether Denslow drew them specifically for the paper is unclear -- though the paper also printed a drawing from Denslow's Scarecrow and Tinman comic page. But now, on to the treasures!

The first new drawing is a playful picture of the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman pulling the Cowardly lion's whiskers. This trio was the hit of the show - the lion was one of the favorite characters with audiences; only Fred Stone's Scarecrow and David Montgomery's Tin Man were more loved.

This whisker-pulling might actually be a moment from the musical; there was similar playful banter among the three characters at several points in the show. The lion's pose is similar to one of Denslow's posters for the show. It's also reminiscent of Denslow's lion drawing on the cover of the Wizard of Oz souvenir song book. The Scarecrow's anatomy is more humanly proportioned, a'la Fred Stone, than the character's appearance in the book. The head is more oblong, the legs longer, etc.

The other new drawing is this fine portrait of the Cowardly Lion. Like the Scarecrow above, the Lion seems a bit more inspired by Arthur Hill's Cowardly Lion costume than real lion anatomy: i.e. the lion's rather saggy rear.

The other new Denslow illustration was a picture of Pearl and the Pumpkin composer John W. Bratton and librettist Paul West driving a water wagon, inspired by one of their earlier song hits. I'll share it in a future blog post.

And that ends today's post on some new drawings of our favorite threesome!

Copyright © 2021 David Maxine. All rights reserved.

The Royal Book of Oz!

The Royal Book of Oz is making a triumphant return to the bookshelves of the world!

Ruth Plumly Thompson circa early 1960s.

There's a super new publishing project beginning by the newly founded Clover Press. They are repackaging the Ruth Plumly Thompson Oz books, with new illustrations. The Royal Book of Oz is the first entry, of course  - and you can be a part of it through their Kickstarter campaign!

Click here to check out the project!

New cover design by illustrator Sara Richard.

Eric Shanower has written a new foreword and there are lots of cool premiums, too: signed boxed editions, lunch boxes, postcards, lapel pins, and more. Come on, help bring the second Royal Historian of Oz to a whole new generation of kids! 

Oz about it?

Click here to support the project!

Martinizing History - the Story of a Poster

NYPL poster - click to enlarge.

I was recently offered what was believed to be an original poster from the 1903 Broadway Wizard of Oz musical (see below). As a plus, this poster had come from the OzCot Lodge owned by Harry Baum (L. Frank's son) and Harry's wife, Brenda. What fun provenance! From the seller's description I thought it was going to be another copy of a well-known Wizard of Oz poster at the New York Public Library (seen at left). Indeed, I've had a black-and-white photocopy of the NYPL poster for over twenty years, which used to hang in my studio in San Diego. Oddly, the poster I'd been offered was mounted to a piece of green-painted plywood with a wooden frame around it. Hmm... that's kind of curious.

The original NYPL poster is quite large - approximately a foot wide and about four feet long. This poster has been reprinted in a number of scholarly publications. It is reproduced in Mark Evan Swartz's Oz Before the Rainbow (2000) and in Allan Eyles's The World of Oz (1985). It is an interesting poster, being essentially line art printed in green on white paper. A little more color was added by printing two boxes of type in red and adding red fields of color behind the portraits of the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Dorothy at the top. The words "WIZARD OF OZ" are printed in overlapping green and red resulting in a rather unattractive brown color. The poster is also very time specific. Directly under the words "WIZARD OF OZ" it says "Now in its 23d Week of Phenomenal Success."

Although the poster I was recently offered (see below) is identical in size to the NYPL poster, it has several oddities. The first is that it was printed in black and white, NOT green and white with red enhancements. Well, I reasoned . . . maybe the show's producers decided to print this poster more cheaply as the show progressed in its run after "its 23d Week of Phenomenal Success."

The Poster that was offered for sale.

I asked the owner of the poster (and long time Oz Club member) Mark Frederic Dereng for a more detailed photo and on receipt found a most curious thing. The black-and-white poster had exactly the same date as the green-and-white NYPL original: "Now in its 23d Week . . ."

Detail of the poster that was offered for sale. Courtesy of owner Mark Frederic Dereng.

Why? Why on earth would the producers have produced a green, red, and white version AND a black-and-white version for the same week of advertising?  I noticed that there was another significant difference between the two posters. The NYPL version has the names of the characters printed in a typeface similar to "Courier." It looks a lot like a typewriter font. It's actually rather ugly and the lettering is crooked in places and is a detriment to the NYPL poster. The offered black-and-white poster had the character names hand-lettered as white text against a black background.

Character Lettering from original NYPL Poster.

Character Lettering from black-and-white version.

The ABC version.

On the one hand, the white-on-black lettering seems an improvement of the boring and ugly typeface of the NYPL poster. On the other hand, the new lettering got me kind of worried, as it really looked a lot like Oz illustrator Dick Martin's lettering. It is also forced in places - such as the crude way the black wraps around Sir Dashemoff's foot. Hmmm . . .

This poster is said to have belonged to Baum's son, Harry. Could that be confirmed? I asked friends who had attended the old OzCot conventions in the 1960s if they recalled the poster being at OzCot. One long-time friend quickly replied: he had first seen the poster in the December 1962 issue of American Book Collector and then on exhibit at OzCot in 1963. He attached high-res scans of the poster from the magazine. (The American Book Collector version of the poster can be seen at right - click to enlarge.) They matched the poster I had been offered. The poster's provenance as belonging to Harry Baum was now verified.

I received several phone camera photos of the poster I had been offered. In every way the photos match the American Book Collector version of the poster.

But that black-on-white lettering really looked so Dick Martin-like! And Dick helped procure the graphics for the 1962 American Book Collector. Had Dick modified the poster for reproduction in the American Book Collector and then, perhaps, given his photostat to Harry Baum to adorn the Ozcot Lodge? My friend had verified that the poster was at Ozcot by June 1963 - but had Harry Baum owned the poster for sixty years or six months?

As I mentioned up above, once that lettering started shouting Dick Martin, the entire history of the poster became suspect to me. You see, Dick Martin often tweaked, altered (and sometimes completely invented) graphics back in the late 1950s and '60s, usually to make them reproduce more easily.

Below is an example of a 1903 Wizard of Oz poster Dick Martin "invented." It is printed in The Musical Fantasies of L. Frank Baum (1958). The Tin Woodman and Scarecrow drawings are Dick Martin trying to be Denslowesque. The poster is based on nothing I have ever found in my very in-depth research into the show.

Dick Martin's poster from MUSICAL FANTASIES OF L. FRANK BAUM.

To top it off, Dick Martin pulled the photos of Montgomery and Stone from the cover of their Chin-Chin sheet music circa 1914!

Sheet Music from CHIN-CHIN (1914).

But let's look at Dick Martin's lettering on his "invented" poster:

Dick Martin lettering circa 1958.

It is very similar to the white on black lettering of the poster I was offered. Using letters from Dick Martin's invented poster from Musical Fantasies, I pieced together most of a name to use for comparison. I chose General Riskitt as an example, as he has more letters in common than the other names:

In my opinion the clear similarity in lettering style clinches it. The black-and-white version of the poster I was offered seems to have been heavily modified by Dick Martin. It is, in my opinion, a modified photostat of the NYPL original, which, you'll recall, was printed in green and red and celebrates the 23rd week of the run. Here's what I suspect Dick Martin did and some of the reasons why.

Dick Martin certainly knew how important the 1903 show was to the history of Oz and its impact on Baum's life and career. Including a poster in the ABC article would have been a good idea. I suspect Dick chose this poster as it was line art and would reproduce well in the black-and-white magazine. So it seems Martin obtained a photostat of the poster from the NYPL. A stat would have reproduced the line art beautifully - but there was a catch. Red ink reproduced as black in many photostatting techniques and indeed still does on many photocopiers. My physical copy of the NYPL poster (the one that used to hang in my studio) was made by taking the poster to the NYPL copystand and simply making a few photocopies. The red ink went totally black, obscuring the drawings of the Tin Woodman, Dorothy, and the Scarecrow. Note, too, in the image below the sort of ugly original Courier typeface of the names "Imogene, the Cow" and "The Cowardly Lion." Why do I point out the ugly Courier type? Because I think the typed names are what Dick Martin found to be so ugly - on an otherwise handsome and reproducible poster - that he felt he ought to redo the lettering for the reproduction in the American Book Collector.

Photocopy of poster at NYPL showing how the red ink copies as black.

You can see the red ink reproducing as black is a problem. To get around this, Dick probably traced the obscured sections from the original, then cut out the black rectangles and redrew the three character faces. Martin's redrawn versions are much cruder than those on the original NYPL poster. He has also added the names of the performers in his distinctive lettering style.

NYPL original on left, redrawn version on right. Click to enlarge.

NYPL original on left, redrawn version on right. Click to enlarge.

Note especially the bottom of the picture of Dorothy. Dick Martin has only left the part of the vegetation that is not overlapping the red because that part of the vegetation was obscured in the photostat and he'd apparently not traced it in such detail as to preserve the entire image.

NYPL original on left, redrawn version on right. Click to enlarge.

Here's another example: the title THE WIZARD OF OZ was printed in both red and green - producing a rather ugly brown. But the original NYPL poster is not in perfect registration and the title lettering is quite unattractive. But in a photostat of the NYPL poster, both red and green will reproduce as black so the text of THE WIZARD OF OZ is thicker and blobbier. You can see below that the Martin version of the poster for American Book Collector is reproduced directly from the NYPL version of the poster, as the shape of his lettering matches the shapes of the combined red AND green inks. I have digitally prepared a version of the word OF showing only the green ink. If the offered poster had been printed in 1903 the printer could have simply used the green printing plate with black ink and gotten a crisp, accurate reproduction of the original typography.

Comparison of the word "OF" - NYPL version, Martin version, then NYPL green ink only.

 If the show's producers had wanted to do a black and white version of the poster in addition to the green, red, and white version, all they really had to do was use black ink on the green printing plate (and move the red text block over to the new plate). There is ZERO reason to redraw the sections backed by the red unless you're working from a black and white photostat of the green and red poster. It is the incredibly time-consuming workaround to achieve a clean drawing that most proves the poster a 1960s era creation by Dick Martin.

So, in my opinion, that's it - Dick Martin modified the poster, fancied up the lettering of the character's names, and after he was finished with his modified artwork, he presented it to Harry Baum as a decoration at Ozcot Lodge.

But to end on a more up note, I'd like to explore a bit more history in how the original poster came to be. The source of the artwork for these posters is a drawing printed in the February 2, 1903, New York Evening Telegram.

Original version of artwork in February 2, 1903, New York Evening Telegram.

This artwork was drawn by Henry C. Coultaus (1862-1923), a cartoonist for the New York Evening Telegram, who specialized in drawing illustrations for that paper's Drama section.

Cartoonist Henry C. Coultaus (1862-1923),

Coultaus's Wizard of Oz illustration is for the paper's "What the Playhouses Offer" listing. Note that in this original version of the artwork it is the names of the actors that appear under the character drawings - not the names of the characters themselves.

Quite probably, the Wizard of Oz's producers were taken with the newspaper artwork and asked to turn it into an inexpensive poster. But those actors names! Some of them were not even with the show anymore by the 23rd week when the poster is first known to have appeared. And besides, the cast changed frequently enough that there would be little accuracy or even point in saying who played whom. So the producers modified the original design - probably having gotten a photostat from the Evening Telegram and (perhaps in a rush) they painted out the actor names and simply "typed" the character names onto the Evening Telegram's photostat.

This is interesting, I hope, and not too confusing: the newspaper version is about HALF the size of the poster as it was eventually printed. If the "typing" to replace the actors' names with character names was done on the paper's photostat by an actual typewriter it would explain why the Courier lettering of the poster looks so much like it was done with a typewriter - it was! At first, I'd assumed it couldn't be because it was too large to have come from an actual typewriter - but blowing up the newspaper sized stat (with normal typing on it) would result in the oversize courier font found on the poster.

I really do wish the offered poster had been genuine. Owning an original poster from the show is still a dream of mine. And you know, a large 56-year-old photostat, mounted on green plywood, created by an official Oz illustrator, and from the personal collection of Harry Baum isn't a bad thing! But it's not the hundred and sixteen year old poster I had so very much wanted it to be.

Original Art by John R. Neill!

Greetings! We now have a sister blog called "The John R. Neill Collection" which is connected to our new sister website called JohnRNeill.com. I'm very excited to announce that we will be offering a fine collection or original artwork by John R. Neill for sale! CLICK HERE to see our first offerings

These wonderful drawings, paintings, and illustrations which we are offering for sale come directly from the family of John R. Neill (1877-1943). After his death, Neill's second wife, Margaret Carroll Neill (called Moy by the family), carefully preserved and treasured her husband's art work in Neill's final home, "Endolane," in Flanders, New Jersey.

Mrs. Neill died in 1984 and the Neill archive was distributed among Neill's three daughters, Natalie, Annrea, and Joan. This youngest daughter, Joan Neill Farnsworth, dutifully preserved her share for many years, making it available to researchers and scholars as needed.  Joan died in 2011 and the Neill archive was split, yet again, between Joan's four children.

The wonderful pieces offered here are all from the collection of one of the granddaughters of John R. Neill. Each piece of art sold at johnrneill.com comes with a letter of provenance. This is a rare chance to own one of Neill's original drawings. We will be featuring some of his exquisite pen-and-ink work, sumptuous paintings, original magazine art, and of course some very rare Oz material. Keep checking our store - more drawings will be added weekly.

One of the treasures of the collection is this magical rabbit painting from Pictorial Review! Click here to see the sale page.

"The Bunny Band" Original painting by John R. Neill $10,000.00 SOLD!

We also have some of Neill's exquisite pen-and-ink work such as this jaunty illustration of a dapper young couple out for a ride in their sporty automobile. Click here to see the sale page.

"Out for a ride! Pen-and-Ink by John R. Neill $1250.00

There is much more to see at our online gallery store so come on over and explore this wonderful collection! We hope, too,  that you will find much enjoyment in owning a piece of original art by one of America's most extraordinary, but under-rated illustrators from the golden age of illustration.

Come check it all out at

www.johnrneill.com

The First Oz Fan Fiction

Today's post shares what is almost certainly the earliest Oz fan fiction. This rare find was discovered by Eric Shanower in 2017 while he was helping me with research on my book about the 1903 Wizard of Oz.

The story published June 5, 1909, in the Syracuse Post-Standard, was called Ozma of Oz, Continued; or The Quest for the Magic Belt. It was written by two boys, Henry Kutz, age ten, and Max Stolz, age nine.

The heading states that the story was begun July 7, 1908, and finished on July 9, 1908, and is dedicated with love to Uncle Joe--who is Rev. Dr. Joseph Stolz of Chicago, who came to Syracuse to visit his relatives on July 9, 1908.

The two boys seem to have written the story "round-robin" style, one boy writing a paragraph, the other boy writing the next, and so on. Each section is signed by the initials of the boy that wrote it.

What is especially fascinating is that the two boys combine Baum's non-Oz fantasies John Dough and the Cherub and Queen Zixi of Ix and place them in the Oz universe before L. Frank Baum united his fantasy novels in The Road to Oz. The article clearly says (twice) that the story was written in summer 1908. The boys are also the first to introduce the wireless telegraph into the Oz universe, well before Baum does so in 1913's The Patchwork Girl of Oz.

Henry Kutz, the elder boy, also introduced a new group of villains called the "Hollywogs," described as "monster green giants with axes." These also seem like a precursor to future Baumian villains, the Growleywogs, again not introduced until 1910's The Emerald City of Oz.

Given that this fan fiction was published in Syracuse, it would seem quite likely someone sent a copy to Baum and that he found the two boys' idea of uniting all his fantasies in one universe a good one and promptly wrote it into the next Oz book. Perhaps, too, the Hollywogs and the wireless telegraphy. There is no way to know for sure, but Baum often talked of using his young fans' ideas.

Max Stolz's last section seems a bit garbled. He has the Oz group go to see King Bird of Noland. This would seem either a typo on the part of the typesetter, who couldn't read the boy's handwriting, or young Mr. Stolz misremembered King Bud's name as King Bird. The author has also turned Princess Fluff (from Queen Zixi of Ix) into Queen Fluff of Ax [sic], now married to King Azma.

This is a fun little story written by two boys who very much loved the Oz books and Baum's non-Oz fantasies. Enjoy the very first Oz fan fiction!

Dorothy Gale "Edition De Luxe"

My fellow blogger Bill Campbell over at The Oz Enthusiast is almost as obsessed with the 1903 Wizard of Oz musical as I am. He's a fellow collector of stage-oriented Oz material and he's even built a tremendously fun toy-theatre version of the show.

In researching for the toy theatre, Bill became quite interested in Carolyn Siedle's costume sketches for the 1903 Wizard of Oz. On a recent trip to New York, Bill took photos of most of the surviving costume sketches and assembled them all in a blog post. He later did another blog comparing and contrasting the sketches with the finished costumes as seen in assorted production photos. But at least one of the sketches was rather a stumper for Bill - an unknown Act III dress for Dorothy.

Carolyn Siedle's original costume sketch.

The image shows Dorothy in a sort of "baby-doll" dress. It's short, like a very young girl's would be at the time, all white, with assorted ruffles and bands of applied ribbon, and most oddly, black knee-socks with little white shoes. It's not a look we've associated with Dorothy in that show and doesn't match any of actress Anna Laughlin's Dorothy dresses that we know from the Broadway stage photos.

Bill wondered if it was a preliminary design, perhaps cut from the show. But I had an idea it might be something else. I had a sneaky suspicion that a number of the sketches were not from the Broadway version of the show but from the revised version of the show dubbed "Edition de Luxe" prepared in the Spring of 1904. The show got many new songs, many new costumes, and a general freshening. So I started digging through my photo archive trying to prove my theory. Finally I remembered a photo from Act III of the Hurtig and Seaman touring production circa late 1906. Lo and behold we get a picture of Dorothy Gale kneeling during the finale, and I think she is wearing this mystery frock!

Dorothy at the end of Act III in the Hurtig and Seaman production circa late 1906.

The hat seems similar enough, but the banding on the hem seems spot on. The Hurtig and Seaman production is also just a bit dowdier than the original Julian Mitchell version, too. Hence the slightly frumpy look (though she is kneeling and pleading for help from the Witch of the North).  Below you can see Anna Laughlin in the original Act III dress at the same moment from the show.

Anna Laughlin Act III original Broadway version of the dress.

I strongly suspect that Anna Laughlin made the request for a new Act III dress in Edition de Luxe. The dress above looks heavy and hot, while the little white frock looks quite breezy and cool. A good thing when playing in warm theatres, under the lights with no air-conditioning.

One reason I think the request may have come directly from Anna Laughlin is that the new Act III dress bears a striking resemblance to a dress Anna Laughlin had worn onstage back in August of 1900.

Anna Laughlin in The Casino Boy, circa August 1900

I was fairly convinced several of the sketches Bill found were from the post-Broadway "Edition De Luxe" but he just obtained a photo of another sketch that is explicitly from "Edition De Luxe," one of the Cowgirls from the "Sitting Bull" number introduced in the new 1904 edition. I'm sharing a photo of one of the chorus girls (Theresa Van Brune) in the realized costume. Note that the Ozzy cowgirl in the photo is having a smoke!

In closing, I must say that the Oz Cowboy chorus girl is a really lovely and very modern looking costume. I can see why they called it "Edition de Luxe!"