The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

The WONDERFUL
                                 WIZARD
                                   OF
                                   OZ

                            BY L. Frank Baum

                             W. W. Denslow.

[Illustration]

                            Geo. M. Hill Co.
                               New York.




                             INTRODUCTION.


Folk lore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood
through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and
instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly
unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more
happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations.

Yet the old-time fairy tale, having served for generations, may
now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for the
time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which the
stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together with all
the horrible and blood-curdling incident devised by their authors
to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern education includes
morality; therefore the modern child seeks only entertainment in its
wonder-tales and gladly dispenses with all disagreeable incident.

[Illustration]

Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful Wizard of
Oz" was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to
being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are
retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out.

                     L. FRANK BAUM.

  CHICAGO, APRIL, 1900.

[Illustration]

  Copyright 1899
  By L. Frank Baum
  and W. W. Denslow.
  All rights reserved

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                           LIST OF CHAPTERS.


  CHAPTER I.--The Cyclone.

  CHAPTER II.--The Council with The Munchkins.

  CHAPTER III.--How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow.

  CHAPTER IV.--The Road Through the Forest.

  CHAPTER V.--The Rescue of the Tin Woodman.

  CHAPTER VI.--The Cowardly Lion.

  CHAPTER VII.--The Journey to The Great Oz.

  CHAPTER VIII.--The Deadly Poppy Field.

  CHAPTER IX.--The Queen of the Field Mice.

  CHAPTER X.--The Guardian of the Gates.

  CHAPTER XI.--The Wonderful Emerald City of Oz.

  CHAPTER XII.--The Search for the Wicked Witch.

  CHAPTER XIII.--How the Four were Reunited.

  CHAPTER XIV.--The Winged Monkeys.

  CHAPTER XV.--The Discovery of Oz the Terrible.

  CHAPTER XVI.--The Magic Art of the Great Humbug.

  CHAPTER XVII.--How the Balloon was Launched.

  CHAPTER XVIII.--Away to the South.

  CHAPTER XIX.--Attacked by the Fighting Trees.

  CHAPTER XX.--The Dainty China Country.

  CHAPTER XXI.--The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts.

  CHAPTER XXII.--The Country of the Quadlings.

  CHAPTER XXIII.--The Good Witch grants Dorothy's Wish.

  CHAPTER XXIV.--Home Again.


  _This book is dedicated to my
  good friend & comrade.

                My Wife

                      L.F.B._




                               Chapter I.

                              The Cyclone.


[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle
Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.
Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried
by wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof,
which made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cooking
stove, a cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs,
and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner,
and Dorothy a little bed in another corner. There was no garret at
all, and no cellar--except a small hole, dug in the ground, called a
cyclone cellar, where the family could go in case one of those great
whirlwinds arose, mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It
was reached by a trap-door in the middle of the floor, from which a
ladder led down into the small, dark hole.

When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see
nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a
house broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached the edge of
the sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a
gray mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was
not green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until
they were the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had
been painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it
away, and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.

[Illustration: "_She caught Toto by the ear._"]

When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The
sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from
her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her
cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt,
and never smiled, now.