A hundred years ago, L. Frank Baum introduced delighted children to the Land of Oz. This land, as described in

The Wizard of Oz

and later books, is a wonderful place where every day brings exciting adventures and problems that are solved by children, adults, animals, scarecrows, and robots talking together as equals. At the same time that Oz is exotic, it is also a recognizably American fairyland, where hierarchy is unselfconsciously ignored and problems get solved by practical ingenuity.

Lyman Frank Baum was born on May 15, 1856, the seventh child in a prosperous family that lived near Syracuse, New York. His father was an enterprising self-made businessman, who speculated in real estate and the petroleum business, which was just starting in Pennsylvania. Young Frank had many interests

2067 words

Citation: Rogers, Katharine. "L. Frank Baum". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 02 October 2007; last revised 30 August 2018. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=298, accessed 19 March 2024.]

298 L. Frank Baum 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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