Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

1908, 1970s Rand McNally edition
L. Frank Baum
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz
Bought new for $1.95
Paperback with stains and amusingly a page torn by my cat of the time
B-

The Wizard's back!  You know, the ruler who seldom showed himself to his people.  The humbug swindler who abandoned Dorothy.  And, oh yeah, the guy who gave baby Ozma to Mombi.  Yay, the Wizard's back!  Let's have a parade!

Well, as Baum says in his introduction, "It seems the jolly old fellow made hosts of friends in the first Oz book."  So let's just ignore what we learned about him in the second book, and have Dorothy and the Ozites remember him fondly.  Still, wouldn't you love to be in the room to ask a few uncomfortable questions when Ozma tells the Wizard how Mombi kidnapped Ozma's grandfather, imprisoning him and then later Ozma's father?  "When I was born she transformed me into a boy."  There's no explanation of how Mombi managed to be the jailor of three generations of the royal family without Glinda or somebody putting a stop to it.  And it's not clear who rewrote history-- Ozma, her tutor the Wogglebug (now President of the Royal College of Scientific Athletics, part of Baum's satire of academia), Glinda, or our sometimes forgetful author?

Baum is starting to move towards a utopia, with Eureka's murder trial a rarity in a land where the people are "generally so well-behaved" that they don't have any lawyers.  Baum gets to satirize law, too, and it's funny that no one minds that the Wizard and the soft-hearted Tin Woodman defraud the court by claiming one of the other nine piglets is the recovered victim.

Two-thirds of the book is set in other lands than Oz, ones that are less appealing than Ev or the Nome Country.  I appreciate the ingenuity of Dorothy, the Wizard, and their new friends, but then there are moments like when I wonder, "Why don't they use the Braided Man's Flutters and Rustles to scare the noise-hating Gargoyles?"  The story literally dead-ends in a cave, and there's no Vernean volcano to save them.  Instead, Dorothy reveals that Ozma has been checking in on her every day at 4 o'clock.  (In Ozma they decide on every Saturday, but maybe that wasn't often enough and Dorothy communicated this visually.)  So Ozma uses the Magic Belt, which Dorothy took from the Nome King and left with Ozma, to rescue Dorothy and friends.

In the end, Dorothy and Eureka go to Kansas, although Eureka will be back in Oz without explanation later.  "Cousin" Zeb and his horse Jim get sent back to California.  Oh yeah, did I mention the earthquake?  This book may or may not be set in 1906.  I've seen a chronology for the first few Oz books, using the dates of Jack's pumpkin heads in Road to Oz and assuming this fourth book is set during the Great Quake in San Francisco.  You can also roughly figure out Dorothy's age, based on clues from later books.  You're not going to get an answer that will cover all contingencies, but it's convincing enough.

Unlike the rehabilitation of the Wizard.  Still, remember, the Wizard is a good guy now.  And Oceania has always been at war with Easteasia.

Oh, I suppose I should say something about Neill's illustrations.  They're not very remarkable in this or Ozma.  They get the job done but they're forgettable compared to the ones in the second and fifth books.  I do like how he does castles, like the glass one on p. 24.  I find it odd that he usually draws Eureka in white tie and tails, particularly since Eureka is a female kitten.  Dorothy's wardrobe is more suited to her than in Ozma, being both simpler and more modern.  His version of the Wizard plays up the Wizard's skullduggery, I mean charm.