A Study Of The Wizard Of Oz Phenomena
...was when it was first released. But what a lot of the public doesn't realise, is that the movie is based on the first of 14 books written by L. Frank Baum.
Publish in 1900, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" marked the beginning of a new type of fairytale. Baum steered away from the Classic European style fairytales like those of Hans Christian Anderson and the Grimm brothers, into a more light-hearted, witty, simplistic story for children that instilled American rural values into them. The simplicity of the story caused controversy within the literary circles at the time, and was the main reason it was banned in many public libraries and not considered proper children's fiction. But despite the acidemia's disapproval of the story, it became widely popular, and was the best selling children's book for two years running.
Baum was a man of the theatre, and in 1902 he turned "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz" into a stage musical aimed at a more adult audience. Politics was a very current issue at the time so he altered the script so that actors made references to figures such as John D. Rockefeller and President Theodore Roosevelt. The story was also change so that instead of having Toto the dog as her Kansas sidekick, Dorothy had Imogene the cow. This was the first version of the story to use the shortened title of "the wizard of oz", and since then, all subsequent versions have used the same title instead of the longer, original title.
Baum and his family moved around a lot and at one stage were living in South Dakota, which is said to be the basis of his description of Kansas at the start of the story. Another place of great influence was Holland, Michigan, where Baum's great grandfather lived; the winding cobblestone streets of the town inspiring the yellow brick road.
He married Maud Gage in 1882, who was the daughter of a famous women's suffrage activist, Matilda...
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