BAUM, L. Frank (1856-1919) and William Wallace DENSLOW, illustrator (1856-1915). The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Chicago and New York: Geo. M. Hill Co., 1900.

First edition, second state, binding C, with serifed publisher's imprint stamped in red. Page 2 publisher's ads are without a box; page 14 reads "low wail of"; page 81, "pieces"; page 227, "While The Woodman"; and the colophon has no box. Lyman Frank Baum began writing 25 years before The Wizard of Oz was published, when he founded a newspaper in Bradford, Pennsylvania. After leaving the paper, "he went on to manage opera houses, act in the theater, and establish a magazine for window dressers," but the success of The Wizard of Oz "kept him writing Oz books for the rest of his life: and even beyond his life, for after he died in 1919 others were commissioned to write more books about the Wizard" (Hungiville). Along with his writing, Baum dabbled in related creative enterprises, such as a never-realized Oz amusement park on Pedloe Island off the coast of California, which he had purchased for this purpose; and a film company, founded in 1914, which produced the first two Oz film versions (the 1939 landmark film adaptation starring Judy Garland was actually the third cinematic portrayal of Oz). Maurice Sendak would pay homage to the original illustrator of the Oz books, William Wallace Denslow, supplying cover art in 2012 for Oz: The Hundredth Anniversary Celebration. Hanff & Greene (rev. ed., 1988), I.2c; Maurice Hungiville, The Wizard of Oz and Who He Was (1984).

Small quarto (210 x 160mm). 24 color plates including pictorial title by W.W. Denslow (some minor fingersoiling throughout). Original pictorial green cloth blocked in green and red, pictorial pastedowns (some soiling to covers and spine, spine head starting to fray, tips slightly bumped).