The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

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.

THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ
1. The Cyclone
Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle
Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.
Their house was small, for the lumber to build it had to be carried by
wagon many miles. There were four walls, a floor and a roof, which
made one room; and this room contained a rusty looking cookstove, a
cupboard for the dishes, a table, three or four chairs, and the beds.
Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a big bed in one corner, and Dorothy a
little bed in another corner. There was no garret at all, and no
cellar--except a small hole dug in the ground, called a cyclone cellar,
where the family could go in case one of those great whirlwinds arose,
mighty enough to crush any building in its path. It was reached by a
trap door in the middle of the floor, from which a ladder led down into
the small, dark hole.
When Dorothy stood in the doorway and looked around, she could see
nothing but the great gray prairie on every side. Not a tree nor a house
broke the broad sweep of flat country that reached to the edge of the
sky in all directions. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray
mass, with little cracks running through it. Even the grass was not
green, for the sun had burned the tops of the long blades until they were
the same gray color to be seen everywhere. Once the house had been
painted, but the sun blistered the paint and the rains washed it away,
and now the house was as dull and gray as everything else.

When Aunt Em came there to live she was a young, pretty wife. The
sun and wind had changed her, too. They had taken the sparkle from
her eyes and left them a sober gray; they had taken the red from her
cheeks and lips, and they were gray also. She was thin and gaunt, and
never smiled now. When Dorothy, who was an orphan, first came to
her, Aunt Em had been so startled by the child's laughter that she would
scream and press her hand upon her heart whenever Dorothy's merry
voice reached her ears; and she still looked at the little girl with wonder
that she could find anything to laugh at.
Uncle Henry never laughed. He worked hard from morning till night
and did not know what joy was. He was gray also, from his long beard
to his rough boots, and he looked stern and solemn, and rarely spoke.
It was Toto that made Dorothy laugh, and saved her from growing as
gray as her other surroundings. Toto was