The Pearl and the Pumpkin

After The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published, other writers for children and artists noticed. More books featuring a marriage of text and illustrations began to appear. Some even view Baum's later work as his attempts to improve on what he'd done in Wonderful Wizard. (Baum felt he did well with The Scarecrow of Oz and Sky Island, actually.)

But what about W.W. Denslow? After he and Baum parted ways, Denslow released several other picture books, and of course, none of them ever gained the popularity of Oz. However, thanks to Denslow's connection to Oz, publishers such as Dover Publications have reissued some of his post-Oz work. And one of the books they chose to reprint was clearly an intended successor to the Oz illustrator's biggest success: The Pearl and the Pumpkin.

According to Michael Patrick Hearn's introduction in the Dover edition, Denslow came up with the idea of The Pearl and the Pumpkin's plot and had his friend Paul West write the idea into a story he'd illustrate. The concept of creating a musical based on the story was also there from the beginning.

The Pearl and the Pumpkin opens on the Pringle farm in Vermont, where Joe Miller (nephew of Farmer Pringle, cousin of his daughter Pearl, meaning that there really shouldn't be a "The Pearl" in the title as much as just "Pearl") is turning the remainder of the Pringle's bumper crop of famous pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns for a Halloween party. Joe figured out how to grow healthy, large pumpkins just about anywhere, and this is his reward.

However, bemoaning their loss is the Canner (Ike Cannem) and the Pieman (John Doe, no relation to Baum's own John Dough) who wanted Pringle pumpkins for their respective businesses. During the party, a third person looking for Joe arrives: the Ancient Mariner from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, except now he just runs errands for Davy Jones and his pirates in their underwater locker. And what do the pirates want? Pumpkin pie! But since pumpkins aren't found under the sea, the Mariner wants to learn Joe's secret.

Joe at first blithely refuses to share his secrets with the three men, but Mother Carey—a wise and kind sea goddess—arrives and warns Joe that they may do him mischief if he doesn't share his secret and she gives him a whistle to summon her with.

We're already seeing Denslow's style of making characters non-threatening. The Ancient Mariner came from a poem about a pretty traumatic sea voyage, and Mother Carey was actually a goddess of sea storms. But here, the Mariner and Davy Jones and the pirates are comic characters, while Mother Carey is basically a rehash of Baum's Good Witch of the North, just now underwater. In addition, the Albatross the Mariner is otherwise famous for killing is never said to be dead, and in Denslow's illustrations, appears to be alive. But it very quickly vanishes from the story.

Getting help from the Corn Dodger (a farm sprite), the Canner, Pieman and Mariner trick Joe into wishing he was a Pumpkin-head to make him give up the secret, even though he'd already decided to tell the Mariner if he asked. The Corn Dodger works this transformation, and Joe turns into a boy with a pumpkin for a torso, a jack-o-lantern head, and vines that make up the rest of his body. As a result of being "a pumpkin head," he also can't remember the secret to growing his pumpkins. The Corn Dodger can't do another transformation until the next midnight, and he can't work magic if he's captured, and the Canner has turned his eyes from pumpkins to the fine corn that makes up the Dodger's body.

Meantime, the Mariner and the Pieman decide that if Joe can't remember his secret, taking him to Davy Jones will surely scare him into doing it. And if that still doesn't work, well then the pirates will have pumpkins for their pie at least.

Denslow, I thought you didn't want to scare children, and here you are with a story where a boy is transformed and threatened to be eaten, and a fairy is threatened with being processed into canned corn. But yet these disturbing themes are present all through the story.

Using magic, Pearl and Joe are transported by the Mariner and the Pieman to Davy Jones' locker. From here, the story turns into a long chase as Joe tries to stay ahead of the pirates, using help from Mother Carey. The Corn Dodger tries to stay ahead of the Canner and is also protected by Mother Carey until the Canner finally catches him. The story reaches a climax in Bermuda where Joe's body is baked into pies in a hotel kitchen and the Canner cuts up the Corn Dodger and puts him in a giant can to be presented to the President of the United States.

Mother Carey is able to recover Joe's head and this is enough for the Corn Dodger (who emerges whole from the can) to restore Joe. (It's mentioned the pies at the hotel are thrown out, because it's only now that eating food made from a transformed person becomes gross...) Joe shares his secret and we are told the world will never experience a pumpkin shortage thanks to this!

The story is light, fun reading and actually pretty enjoyable. But when viewed critically, it lacks a clear, active protagonist. Pearl and Joe are both pretty passive and do little to move the plot along. It's mainly the characters who wrong Joe who do that. Another odd thing is how easily people take to the idea of fairies living amongst them.

And as I said, the idea of making the story into a musical extravaganza was part of the early planning, and it's easy to see how the idea was in mind, just like another Pumpkinhead-starring book released the same year: The Marvelous Land of Oz. In Pearl, all of the major players are introduced early on and if you're familiar with comedy stage productions from that era, it's easy to see how much comic running around is already in the book. And sure enough, the story was made into a musical, and like Marvelous Land's first adaptation The Woggle-Bug, it was a flop.

Perhaps The Pearl and the Pumpkin won't appeal to more casual Oz fans, but those interested in more of Denslow's work should check it out for a fun but weird story.

Hugh Pendexter III added Denslow and West's Davy Jones' Locker to his Wooglet in Oz, meaning that Pearl could be considered an expanded universe Oz story if one wants, though it does raise the question of why people in America are just fine with fairies and otherwise presumed mythical people popping up.

How "Dot and Tot" ended it

In 1901, Baum and Denslow produced their third major collaboration. (I have not counted The Songs of Father Goose as I consider this a spin-off of Father Goose: His Book.) When it came to creating children's books, it was their last collaboration.

If you asked anyone to name Baum's best fantasies, chances are they would not mention Dot and Tot of Merryland. While it's an enjoyable fantasy, its lack of an antagonist and the fact that it's only travelogue are the book's biggest weaknesses.

But in this series of books by Baum and Denslow, it wasn't just Baum's text that made the book, the item that people would buy. While Dot and Tot did sell, it wasn't a comparable success to Father Goose: His Book or The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

So, how did the book look? Well, before we begin, I'd better tell you that my copy of the book with Denslow's illustrations is not an original edition. It's an early Bobbs-Merrill reprint that used green ink instead of a light rusty color. It's similar enough, but the printing (look at the Queen's face above) may not have been quite on register. (From what I've seen, George Hill's company was really good about that.) I'm also running these through Photoshop. As such, the colors look bolder than they do in the book.

The above seven pages are typical of the illustrations throughout the book. While Denslow does fine work, the main use of color was printing the illustrations in three colors: black, green (a rusty color in the original edition) and red. There were no color plates.

The main issue is that Father Goose: His Book had an innovative design. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz had an innovative design. Both of these books inspired new formats for children's books. Dot and Tot of Merryland did not. The color design was too similar to Oz, and since it used three inks, that made the chance for misalignment of the plates higher than Oz. And it didn't help that Baum was turning out better fantasies in his other two 1901 titles: American Fairy Tales and The Master Key.

The problem with the illustrations is that if they were reproduced in black and white (just about the only way it could be cost-effectively reproduced), the effect of the different colors would be spoiled, and only recently has the technology arrived that could separate the color signatures from each other. However, no one has yet attempted a reprint with the original Denslow illustrations. Books of Wonder issued a new edition in the early 1990s with new illustrations by Donald Abbot, which are all right, but Denslow's are much more attractive. It was much easier to re-illustrate the book than reproduce the original pictures. Google offers an on-demand reprint of the version they have in their system, but I would not expect a very good looking book. Any other editions in print only use the text, unless someone takes the time and effort to make sure the pictures reproduce well.

While Dot and Tot is a fun and handsome book on its own, when compared to the previous books in the Baum/Denslow partnership (and just about all of Baum's other fantasies), it is sadly lacking. And even sadder, that is where the tradition of this legendary author and a fantastic illustrator producing wonderful children's books together ends.

Baum decided to refocus. Putting out multiple books a year was literally competing with himself, so beginning in 1902 and going on through 1910, only one book was published under the name "L. Frank Baum" a year. (The exception being The Woggle-Bug Book and Queen Zixi of Ix in 1905.) Later, Reilly & Britton would afford him the luxury of pseudonyms to sell more books without this issue.

Denslow was also looking into launching a solo career. The two realized that they really didn't need each other. As such, they parted ways, Baum turning out fantasies that would soon become the famous Oz books. Denslow produced a series of picture books that only recently came back into print thanks to Denslow's connection to Oz.

Baum and Denslow would later work together on The Wizard of Oz musical extravaganza, Baum writing the script and Denslow designing the costumes and sets, but the end result of that led to Baum vowing to never work with Denslow again when Denslow asked for a larger portion of the royalties. (To be fair, his production designs were likely used more than Baum's original script and Paul Tietjens' music.)

In 1904, Denslow used the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman of Oz to create a comic strip, Denslow's Scarecrow and Tin-Man, but I've told about that elsewhere. Baum regretted jointly copyrighting his books and characters with Denslow, and made sure to hold the copyright on his future work himself.

Why "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" sold

When we look at The Wonderful Wizard of Oz today, we often look at what made Baum's story work so well. While this is a perfectly valid assessment, it was only part of why the book became such a huge success. A big reason for its success comes from looking at the original edition of the book. (Or a reproduction thereof since not everyone can get their hands on an original.)

The way L. Frank Baum and W.W. Denslow designed the book was rather elaborate. Since the book was a novel and not a picture book like Father Goose: His Book, they found a new way to mix the text, illustrations and color.

The design involved multiple colored inks as well as black, not to mention twenty four color plates. There would be sections of the illustration printed in black and sections printed in color ink that would appear under the text. Furthermore, the color of the ink would change with each location of the story. A dull brown for Kansas:

Blue for the Munchkin Country:

Bright red for the poppy field:

Green for the Emerald City and the surrounding country:

A dark yellow for the Winkie Country:

A ruddy brown for the south country:

And red again for the domain of Glinda:

Not only was this an inventive use of color, it actually made color work with the storytelling, once again creating a union in color, text and illustration to create a lavish book for children. Not only was the story delightful, the way the book looked made it a popular item.

Denslow's illustrations are also to thank. Although his Dorothy doesn't look quite so girlish, she is not ugly and the rest of the characters are very charming. Denslow also doesn't draw the giant spider or the Wizard's form as a monstrous beast, and the Wicked Witch of the West has been given some comical details to soften her character. (The umbrella, eyepatch and pickaninny pigtails.)

No child would have nightmares from Oz. No chapter ends with a cruel beast or witch coming after Dorothy, and if there is bloodshed, it is not dwelled on. Denslow's pictures only help accentuate Baum's storytelling.

The Hill Company was once again hesitant to publish Oz, but Baum and Denslow decided to put their royalties from Father Goose: His Book into helping defray production costs, a gamble that paid off very well. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz remained in print until the Hill Company closed.

The plates and rights for Baum's books were bought up by the Bobbs-Merrill Company who issued a number of Baum's later books until Reilly & Britton came onto the scene. Following the success of The Wizard of Oz stage extravaganza, Bobbs-Merrill redesigned the book. It still used interior color and Denslow created some new artwork for it, including a new title page and endapers, but it was not quite as lavish as the original edition.

Perhaps the difference in design was why the original Bobbs-Merrill edition was called The New Wizard of Oz. Shortly after, Bobbs-Merrill changed the title to simply The Wizard of Oz, a name the book was published under for a very long time. In fact, it does not appear that the word Wonderful was added back to the title until after the book went into public domain.

Later editions of the Bobbs-Merrill Wizard of Oz became even simpler, interior color quickly being dropped to keep the cost of reprinting it low. Eventually, this led to the first re-illustrating by Evelyn Copelman, which opened the door to other artists creating new illustrations. While many fine artists have put their talents to Oz, none have matched the same charm Denslow produced when he and L. Frank Baum designed a novel for children that would never give them nightmares. Although John R. Neill would later succeed Denslow as illustrator for Oz and created amazing artwork, the fact remains that he never had the same relationship with Baum as Denslow did. While many have wished that Neill had re-illustrated Wizard, sometimes, I feel it is best that he left the book alone.

The original edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is indeed the most lavish the book had ever looked, and it is rather easy to contest that this is how author and illustrator wanted the book to look. The beautiful volume delighted many eyes in 1900 with the colorful pictures and a wonderful story. It was Denslow's success just as much as Baum's for creating such a great book.

Father Goose: His Book

So, Baum and W.W. Denslow were friends and decided to collaborate on a book of poetry for children. Then they decided not to just make a plain book of verse with illustrations, every page would contain pictures in color, Baum's verse being beautifully hand-lettered by their friend Ralph Fletcher Seymour, who would receive a lump sum for his services.

After assembling a publisher's dummy, the book was a hard sell to publishers. Such a lavish book for children was unheard of. Finally, Baum and Denslow considered publishing the book themselves, when finally the George Hill Company offered to take the project, provided Baum and Denslow help pay for production costs.

The investment was worth it, and Father Goose: His Book became the biggest selling children's book of 1899, going through a second printing by the year's end, making author and illustrator famous.

Father Goose: His Book wasn't just another children's book, it actually changed the concept of children's books. While highly illustrated books for children were not unheard of, such a lavish marriage of text, illustration and color was a new concept, one that would quickly become adopted. Much of Denslow's later output would be such books.

You would think that Father Goose would still be a popular and often reprinted book due to that, but no, after many editions by Hill and later the Bobbs-Merrill Company, the book was not reissued. The high use of color would reproduce badly if, say, Scholar's Facsimiles and Reprints had attempted it in black and white. A similar problem prevented smaller companies such as The International Wizard of Oz Club from reprinting it. As for the mainstream market, some of Baum's verse—innocent in its day—was no longer politically correct. As a result, while Father Goose became famous in its day, its verses quickly fell out of popularity and never reached the same classic status as the Mother Goose rhymes.

I once ventured to borrow Father Goose through interlibrary loan and wound up with a second edition for a few weeks. Although the spine was gone, the book still stood up after over a century. (This was about 2002.) I managed to make photocopies of it in black and white for future reference. Although I enjoyed looking at it, I was quite relieved when I returned the book to the library: the valuable old book was out of my hands and on its way back home.

Luckily in 2009, Marcus Mebes was able to use two copies of the book to scan and create a new print-on-demand edition through his Pumpernickel Pickle imprint on Lulu. He made it available in both color and black and white, both versions in hardcover and paperback, as well as a free PDF download. I was one of the first people to buy a copy, going for a color paperback edition.

Having seen an original Hill copy, I can tell that the new edition is reduced in size, but no details seem to be lost. The cover has been recolored to be quite striking, but all of the interior art is still in its original coloring, and there is an additional page showing the original cover and the endpaper artwork.

There are other editions that use only the text of Baum's poems, but as the book is historical for Denslow's work as well, I generally ignore their existence. Denslow was every bit as important to this project as Baum, and viewing it only for Baum's work is unfair.

Baum writes in his introduction:

There is a fascination in the combination of jingling verse and bright pictures that always appeals strongly to children. The ancient "Mother Goose Book" had these qualities, and for nearly two centuries the cadences of its rhymes have lingered in the memories of men and women who learned them in childhood.

The author and illustrator of "Father Goose" have had no intent to imitate or parody the famous verse and pictures of "Mother Goose." They own to having followed, in modern fashion, the plan of the book that pleased children ages ago--and still pleases them. These are newer jingles and pictures for children of to-day, and intended solely to supplement the nursery rhymes of our ancestors.

 But the reason for a Father Goose is made clear in the first verse, dripping with Baum humor:

Old Mother Goose became quite new,
And joined a Woman`s Club;
She left poor Father Goose at home
To care for Sis and Bub.

They called for stories by the score,
And laughed and cried to hear
All of the queer and merry songs
That in this book appear.

When Mother Goose at last returned
For her there was no use;
The goslings much preferred to hear
The tales of FATHER GOOSE.

 Baum introduces many fun characters in his verses: many children, the Goose who lived in Syracuse, Mr. Green, Mr. Jinks, and Mr. Hickory. Writing simple verses for children, Baum is at better form than he was in By the Candelabra's Glare. He even humorously retells the story of George Washington and the Cherry Tree, ending it with a twist in which young George chops down another cherry tree and admits to it to avoid another spanking, but his father administers it anyway and sells George's hatchet.

As mentioned, some of Baum's verses are not politically correct. Mentions of Aborigines, a Hindu girl, Aunt Dinah's rejection of a sailor because he lived in China once are all at odds with what we would let our children read today. Most infamous is the poem "The Little Nigger Boy." While the term was generally accepted as standard language at the time, it began as—and continues to be—a derogatory term. If it wasn't for the fact that Denslow clearly drew an African-American boy, it could have easily been changed to "The Little Foolish Boy" without harm to the verse. These seven verses, in the eyes of being politically correct, mar an otherwise fine book and were one of the reasons why it was out of print for so long. The odd thing is, it was actually rare for a children's book to depict such characters in 1899.

Denslow is also at fine form here. While Maud Baum once claimed that Denslow could not draw a child-like child, here he draws children much more successfully than he did in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Some aren't as good as others, though. Just about all of his characters seem funny and quaint. Surely not even the imposing Bandit or Captain Bing could give a child nightmares!

Even over a hundred years later, the appeal of Father Goose: His Book is still very evident. And it is very important to the history of Oz, because without it making Baum and Denslow a famous duo, we would probably not have had The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, at least, not as it first appeared.

• Free PDF edition
• Black and white paperback
• Black and white hardcover
• Color paperback
• Color hardcover
• Text of Baum's verse

Den in (and out of) Oz

So, I went over John R. Neill's Oz stories last month. But guess what? His predecessor, W.W. Denslow also wrote Oz stories about the Oz characters. Quite simply, he and Baum had joint ownership over The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He had the legal right to use the characters, and Baum, while quite upset that he had made such an arrangement, could do nothing about it. (Thanks for the reminder, Eric.)

A series of newspaper stories, similar to Baum's Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz, began in 1904, written by Denslow. It was entitled Denslow's Scarecrow and Tin-Man.

The first entry was somewhat promising. It was entitled "Dorothy's Christmas Tree." Set sometime during Dorothy's first visit to Oz (seemingly just after the Wizard left, or perhaps one of the days he refused to see them after destroying the Wicked Witch), it is Christmas, and Dorothy is sad not to be spending it at home in Kansas, so the Scarecrow and Tin Man decide to do what they can to ensure a merry Christmas for their friend. (I've already chosen this as the story for the Christmas 2011 podcast, so I won't say much more.)

Dorothy doesn't appear in the later stories, so we may presume Denslow set these after her return. Only the second tells of further merry misadventures in Oz (they go ice skating with the most disastrous results), while the third finds them wanting to visit Fifth Avenue, and so the merry misadventures go to plain old Earth in the remaining tales.

The fourth and fifth tales, "About Town" and "Recaptured" were collected into a picture book, The Scarecrow and Tin-Man. Taking a bit of a turn from the rest of the series, the Scarecrow and Tin Man run away from a theater. Yes, seemingly, we went from the characters in Oz to the characters in the Wizard of Oz musical extravaganza. They cause a lot of trouble and eventually are captured by the police and made to work in the theater again.

In later tales, which resume the story of the characters from Oz (including, to a lesser extent, the Cowardly Lion), the misadventures head to the Ocean, then Bermuda. Their ship is wrecked, and they wind up in Yucatan, after saving the crew. Then, they arrive in New Orleans and take a train out west, where they are captured by Indians and rescued by cowboys before they arrive at the Flower Festival in California, where the series ends.

In these stories, the characters from Oz are quite silly and seem to have trouble knowing right from wrong, and are often chased for wrongdoings. The stories are not that great, either. "Dorothy's Christmas Tree" has the strongest plot of the bunch, and then the complexity of plots began to decrease. In fact, the last five newspaper pages are mostly illustration. That's what Denslow did best, and his writing confirms it. While Baum often tried to be funny, most notably in The Marvelous Land of Oz, Denslow relies on forced jokes and slapstick humor. (A woman notes that the Tin Man has a "hard face.")

The series lay in obscurity for many years. Hungry Tiger Press reprinted most of the stories in Oz-Story Magazine, and later, the complete series as a single book edition. When Sunday Press published Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz, they also included all of Denslow's newspaper stories as well, allowing people to see them in their original form.

Thus, Denslow's small, silly, and very odd contribution to Oz is available today. Just don't expect too much from it!

Although he and Baum had parted ways, Denslow provided some new illustrations for later editions of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He designed many of the sets and costumes for the Wizard of Oz musical extravaganza and later, designed a wallpaper frieze featuring characters from the musical accompanied by verses that told an erratic retelling of the musical's plot. (It's estimated to be from 1910, so the details were likely hazy in his mind.) Aside from the Oz characters sometimes appearing in his other work, that was the extent of his connection with Oz.

Denslow, although born the same year as Baum, did not share the same bittersweet happy ending that the Royal Historian of Oz had. His success as a children's writer was very brief and by no means reached the same significance of Baum's later work. All three of Denslow's marriages ended in divorces, and his career took a nosedive. He died of pneumonia in 1915.

It is thanks to Denslow's work on Oz that he is remembered and his work has been sought out. Sadly, it was because of his own ego (and Baum's) that he parted company with Baum, which seems to have been a great mistake on his part. Yet history flowed the way it did, and we cannot know what might have happened had the two creators of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz put their differences aside and focused on working together.