The Giant Horse of Oz

1928, undated but probably 1941 Reilly & Lee edition
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
The Giant Horse of Oz
Original price $1.75, bought used for unknown
Surprisingly good condition hardcover, although the dust jacket is frayed
B

I'll deal with the simpler question of chronology first.  The dust jacket says, "There are now thirty-four of the Delightful Stories of the Wonderful Land of Oz," but they omit Wizard, which I think was still owned by another publisher.  The last book on the list is [The] Scalawagons of Oz, which came out in '41, while Lucky Bucky was published in '42.  The end papers seem to be Scarecrow-era though, with a line of characters that includes Pon the Gardener's Boy but not Betsy.

As for the chronology within the book, I hope you're sitting down.  We're three books past Lost King, but only two years have passed.  And Kabumpo and Gnome King were five years apart.  Let's call this 1828 O.Z., since in Cowardly Lion we learned that it was seven centuries since 1120 O.Z.

1822 O.Z. Kabumpo
1826 Lost King
1827 Gnome King 
1828 Giant Horse

Now, within this story it seems that 25 years ago (1803 O.Z.), Orin was a "Princess of the North," daughter of King Gil of Gilkenny.  Gil ruled some of the northern land, but Mombi was the supreme ruler of all the North, while the nameless King of the Munchkins had a son named Cheeriobed, who fell in love with Orin.  Mombi later fell for Cheeriobed, who of course spurned her, so she swore revenge.  She waited three years though to kidnap Orin, by which point Cheeriobed and Orin were happily married, with a two-year-old son named Philador.  This was twenty years before our story begins, so Cheeriobed and Orin's engagement must've lasted a couple years. 

1803 O.Z. Cheeriobed meets Orin, and they fall in love
1805 They get married, infuriating Mombi
1806 Philador born
1808 Mombi kidnaps Orin
1828 "Present-day"

Philador is now "ten," but that's because it turns out that people can stay the same age as long as they want.  Trot is also ten now.  This means that she was no more ten when she arrived.  This is what I wrote on the subject for Lost Princess:   "Baum tells us that Betsy is a year older than Dorothy, who's a year older than Trot.  He hasn't yet explained that people have stopped aging in Oz, but it's starting to be implied.  Button-Bright is younger than Ojo, and we know he's younger than Trot and Dorothy.  In Road, he seemed to be about half Dorothy's age, say 4 or 5 to her 8 or 9.  He was half a head shorter than Trot in Scarecrow.  If I remember correctly, Thompson will make Trot 9, I think in Giant Horse, so when we get to that point, I'll try to approximate the other kids' ages."  Trot probably was nine at most, since she, like Philador, "likes being ten, so I've been ten for ever so long."  I don't think she could've been less than seven, if she was taller than Button-Bright.

To return to the Oz history, it sort of works for the North, with Mombi turning Orin into Tattypoo, the Good Witch of the North, who conquers Mombi and rules the Gillikins.  (I refuse to misspell that word like Thompson does.)  We still don't know what was up with the "King" of the Gillikins in Road, but that's not Thompson's problem.  The chronology here is more of a problem for the Munchkins, although at least their land is now back where it belongs, in the East.

The story opens on the Ozure Isles, in the Lost Lake of Orizon, definitely one of my favorite Thompsonian kingdoms.  The lake became lost after Mombi kidnapped Orin.  And yet, there's an "old history book" that tells of Ozma and "the three little mortal maids that have come to live in the Emerald City."  The book would have to be at least twenty years old, since the 1807 Ozurians have lost contact with the outside world.  But there is no way that more than twenty years have passed since Betsy and Trot arrived.  That would give us a chronology something like this:

1805 Mombi still rules the North
1806 Betsy arrives
1807 Trot arrives
1808 Ozure loses contact with outside world
1808 or later Tattypoo conquers Mombi
1809 or later Land of Oz is set
1828 "Present-Day"

Maybe the sea gulls brought the book from the mainland, but I'm still calling shenanigans.  My guess, Betsy, Trot, and even Dorothy arrived during the "lost time."  Of course, there's still the problem of the King of the Munchkins mentioned in Ozma and Road.  I'll go into this more when we get to Ojo.

The backstories, confusing though they are, do raise this above the average Thompson story.  There are as usual two parties trying to get to the Emerald City, this time Philador and the two friends he meets along the way, and Trot with the Scarecrow and an animated statue from Boston, this last character falling through the earth to Oz, where it's apparently day when it's night in Boston, lending support to the Oz = Australia theorists.  The two friends of Philador are the title character from Up Town (not to be confused with Down Town in Hungry Tiger), one of Thompson's better animals, and Herby the Medicine Man, who prescribes pills like they're candy.  So, yeah, this time we have drug abuse rather than innuendo, thanks, Plumly!

I'd remembered Neill as having more obviously 1920s illustrations than he does, but this is the book with "flapper Dorothy."  On p. 36, she's shown with feathers in her now dark bob.  (Neill, as you may've noticed by now, is pretty casual about hair color, sometimes changing it from light to dark and back for a character within one book, although he's usually consistent about Ozma, who's had black hair since the third book.)