The Oz books form a book series that begins with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and relates the fictional history of the Land of Oz. Oz was created by author L. Frank Baum, who went on to write fourteen full-length Oz books. Baum styled himself as "the Royal Historian of Oz" in order to emphasize the concept that Oz is an actual place on Earth, full of magic. In his Oz books, Baum created the illusion that characters such as Dorothy and Princess Ozma relayed their adventures in Oz to Baum themselves, by means of a wireless telegraph.
After Baum's death in 1919, publisher Reilly & Lee continued to produce annual Oz books, passing on the role of Royal Historian. Ruth Plumly Thompson took up the task in 1921, and wrote nineteen Oz books. After Thompson, Reilly & Lee published seven more books in the series: three by John R. Neill, two by Jack Snow, one by Rachel Cosgrove Payes, and a final book by Eloise Jarvis McGraw and Lauren Lynn McGraw. The forty books in Reilly & Lee's Oz series are called "the Famous Forty" by fans, and are considered the canonical Oz texts.
Contents
Books by L. Frank Baum
Story collections and other works
In addition to the canonical Oz books, several of Baum's works that are not Oz stories are nevertheless nominally set in the same fictional universe as the Oz books, and include several character crossovers. These are: Dot and Tot of Merryland (1901), The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus (1902), The Magical Monarch of Mo (1903), The Enchanted Island of Yew (1903), Queen Zixi of Ix (1905), John Dough and the Cherub (1906), The Sea Fairies (1911) and Sky Island (1912).
The rest of the "Famous Forty"
Following Baum's death, publisher Reilly & Lee continued publishing annual Oz books, selecting new Royal Historians to record the latest Oz doings. These books, together with Baum's original fourteen novels, form the "Famous Forty", and are considered the canonical books of the series.
Ruth Plumly Thompson's style was markedly different from Baum's. Her tales harked back to more traditional fairy tales. She often included a small kingdom, with a prince or princess who saves his or her kingdom and regains the throne or saves Oz from invasion.
Books by Ruth Plumly Thompson
Thompson wrote two additional novels in the 1970s which are not included in the "Famous Forty": Yankee in Oz (1972) and The Enchanted Island of Oz (1976), both published by the International Wizard of Oz Club.
Books by John R. Neill
Illustrator John R. Neill's vision of Oz is more manic than Thompson or Baum's. Houses often get up and do battle, and everything can be alive. His entries take Oz's color scheme (blue for Munchkin Country, red for Quadling Country, etc.) to an extreme, extending it to sky and skin colors.
Books by Jack Snow
Jack Snow was a Baum scholar, and even offered to take over the series at age twelve when Baum died. Snow's books lack any characters created by Thompson or Neill, although he did create his own.
Additional books
Short stories
Alternative Oz books
Below are some books that deal with alternate versions of Oz, which do not follow the Oz canon originally established by L. Frank Baum.
Books by Gregory Maguire
American novelist Gregory Maguire explored Oz themes in The Wicked Years series between 1995 and 2011, then extended that work with his Another Day series starting in 2021.
Books by Alexander Volkov
Alexander Volkov was a Russian novelist who published his own series of Oz novels called the Magic Land books, for readers in Soviet Russia, China and East Germany. His first book, published in 1939, was a translation and adaptation of Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but the further books that he wrote in the 1960s and 70s were entirely Volkov's invention.