The Famous Forty +

So, I completed my blogging about "The Famous Forty +" as I call it. The reading took a lot less time than the blogging, which I started in April, 2010, and finished yesterday.

Throughout this, I gained a new respect for the other authors who wrote the Famous Forty. Baum was always a big focus on the Royal Blog of Oz, but now I've looked into the lives of the others, and while I don't completely feel I understand all their reasons for writing Oz the way they did, I definitely wouldn't put them down.

I did discover after writing certain blogs that I missed some bits I didn't know at the time of writing. For example, Jack Snow was good friends with International Wizard of Oz Club founder Justin Schiller, and Justin's family invited him along to see the MGM Wizard of Oz film when it was re-released in 1955. It was also the first time Justin saw the film. So, although Snow still had no idea of how much his work would be appreciated, he did have many in the Oz community who looked up to him.

Now, we know the Famous Forty was just the base of what has evolved. People have written their own Oz stories since very early on. (A story by a couple of children called Invisible Inzi of Oz appeared in the magazine A Child's Garden for Cheerful and Happy Homes in 1926.) These stories continue to this day, and even I wrote one. I continue to keep an eye open for the best of these. (Sometimes I don't always find the best, though.)

Quite soon, I'll be looking at some Oz stories that have some close ties to the Famous Forty, but I don't consider them FF+.

But, to mark my completing this series of blogs, here's an index. I didn't cover Baum's A Short, Short Oz Story, since it doesn't bear much on Oz continuity and was just written as a dedication. I did cover some of Thompson's other Oz work, but it is not listed separately on this list, which only lists books and short stories, an exception being An Oz Book. (There will be some developments about it soon, I understand.)

I also discovered I had picked up Oziana 1990, which contained a chapter of Eloise McGraw's abandoned Oz book, revised as a mainly standalone tale. There's not much else to say about it, so I'm including a brief description in the Rundelstone blog.

Anyways, here's my list of the FF+, I hope you've enjoyed or will enjoy my blogs about them.

L. Frank Baum

• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900)
• The Marvelous Land of Oz (1904)
• Queer Visitors From the Marvelous Land of Oz (1904-5)
• The Woggle-Bug Book (1905)
• Ozma of Oz (1907)
• Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (1908)
• The Road to Oz (1909)
• The Emerald City of Oz (1910)
• Little Wizard Stories of Oz (1913)
• The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913)
• Tik-Tok of Oz (1914)
• The Scarecrow of Oz (1915)
• Rinkitink in Oz (1916)
• The Lost Princess of Oz (1917)
• The Tin Woodman of Oz (1918)
• The Magic of Oz (1919)
• Glinda of Oz (1920)
• An Oz Book (1919?)

Ruth Plumly Thompson

• The Royal Book of Oz (1921)
• Kabumpo in Oz (1922)
• The Cowardly Lion of Oz (1923)
• Grampa in Oz (1924)
• The Lost King of Oz (1925)
• The Hungry Tiger of Oz (1926)
• The Gnome King of Oz (1927)
• The Giant Horse of Oz (1928)
• Jack Pumpkinhead of Oz (1929)
• The Yellow Knight of Oz (1930)
• Pirates in Oz (1931)
• The Purple Prince of Oz (1932)
• Ojo in Oz (1933)
• Speedy in Oz (1934)
• The Wishing Horse of Oz (1935)
• Captain Salt in Oz (1936)
• Handy Mandy in Oz (1937)
• The Silver Princess in Oz (1938)
• Ozoplaning With The Wizard of Oz (1939)
• Yankee in Oz (1972)
• The Enchanted Island of Oz (1976)
• The Cheerful Citizens of Oz (poetry) (1992)

John R. Neill

• The Wonder City of Oz (1940)
• The Scalawagons of Oz (1941)
• Lucky Bucky in Oz (1942)
• The Runaway in Oz (1995)

Jack Snow

• The Magical Mimics in Oz (1946)
• The Shaggy Man of Oz (1949)
• Who's Who in Oz (reference book) (1954)
• A Murder in Oz (1955)

Rachel Cosgrove Payes

• The Hidden Valley of Oz (1951)
• The Wicked Witch of Oz (1993)
• "Percy and the Shrinking Violet" (1995)
• "Spots in Oz" (1997)

Eloise McGraw and Lauren McGraw

• Merry Go Round in Oz (1963)
• The Forbidden Fountain of Oz (1980)
• The Rundelstone of Oz (2000)