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| | The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum
Contents
--Introduction--
1. The Cyclone
2. The Council with the Munchkins
3. How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow
4. The Road Through the Forest
5. The Rescue of the Tin Woodman
6. The Cowardly Lion
7. The Journey to the Great Oz
8. The Deadly Poppy Field
9. The Queen of the Field Mice
10. The Guardian of the Gates
11. The Emerald City of Oz
12. The Search for the Wicked Witch
13. The Rescue
14. The Winged Monkeys
15. The Discovery of Oz the Terrible
16. The Magic Art of the Great Humbug
17. How the Balloon Was Launched
18. Away to the South
19. Attacked by the Fighting Trees
20. The Dainty China Country
21. The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts
22.
The Country of the Quadlings
23. Glinda The Good Witch Grants Dorothy's Wish
24. Home Again
Introduction
Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood
through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and
instinctive love for stories fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal.
The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to
childish hearts than all other human creations.
Yet the old time fairy tale, having served for generations,
may now be classed as "historical" in the children's library; for
the time has come for a series of newer "wonder tales" in which
the stereotyped genie, dwarf and fairy are eliminated, together
with
all the horrible and blood-curdling incidents devised by
their authors to point a fearsome moral to each tale. Modern
education includes morality; therefore the modern child seeks only
entertainment in its wonder tales and gladly dispenses with all
disagreeable incident.
Having this thought in mind, the story of "The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz" was written solely to please children of today. It
aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment
and joy are retained and the heartaches and nightmares are left out.
L. Frank Baum
Chicago, April, 1900.
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