L Frank Baum

L. Frank Baum (Lyman Frank Baum) , 1856-1919, American journalist, playwright, and author of children's stories, b. Chittenango, N.Y. He and his family moved to South Dakota in 1888, where he ran a newspaper, and to Chicago in 1891, where he worked as a journalist. His first children's book, Mother Goose in Prose (1897), was followed by Father Goose: His Book (1899), which was an immediate bestseller. In 1900 he published his most famous work, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, a story about a little girl carried by a tornado to the magical land of Oz. Baum's dramatization of the book was produced in 1902; the story was also made into an extraordinarily popular motion picture in 1938. Although he wrote more than 70 children's books, Baum's fame rests largely on The Wizard and his 13 other stories of Oz, including Ozma of Oz (1907) and The Scarecrow of Oz (1915), all of which emphasize such American virtues as practicality, self-reliance, tolerance, and egalitarianism.

Bibliography: See M. P. Hearn, ed., The Annotated Wizard of Oz (1973); biography by K. M. Rogers (2002).

Baum, L[yman] Frank (1856–1919), journalist, dramatist, and writer of juvenile tales, best known for his fantasies for children about the land of Oz, of which the first was The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), the story of a little girl, Dorothy, and her dog Toto whisked away on a cyclone from their drab Kansas home to a land of adventure and achievement inhabited by such creatures as a Cowardly Lion, a Tin Woodman, an animate Scarecrow, a witch, and the Wizard himself. The success of this book and Baum's musical extravaganza adapted for the stage (1901) led to his 13 sequels, including Ozma of Oz (1907), The Road to Oz (1909), and The Lost Princess of Oz (1917), as well as many additions to the series by other authors after Baum's death. He himself wrote about 60 books, mostly for children, including 18 for girls, written under the pseudonym Edith Van Dyne.