Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History The Wonderful Wizard of OzOpen Original Text The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
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Title: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Author: L. Frank Baum
Release date: February 1, 1993 [eBook #55]
Most recently updated: December 29, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/55
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ ***
[Illustration]
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
by L. Frank Baum
This book is dedicated to my good friend & comrade
My Wife
L.F.B.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter I. The Cyclone
Chapter II. The Council with the Munchkins
Chapter III. How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow
Chapter IV. The Road Through the Forest
Chapter V. The Rescue of the Tin Woodman
Chapter VI. The Cowardly Lion
Chapter VII. The Journey to the Great Oz
Chapter VIII. The Deadly Poppy Field
Chapter IX. The Queen of the Field Mice
Chapter X. The Guardian of the Gates
Chapter XI. The Emerald City of Oz
Chapter XII. The Search for the Wicked Witch
Chapter XIII. The Rescue
Chapter XIV. The Winged Monkeys
Chapter XV. The Discovery of Oz, the Terrible
Chapter XVI. The Magic Art of the Great Humbug
Chapter XVII. How the Balloon Was Launched
Chapter XVIII. Away to the South
Chapter XIX. Attacked by the Fighting Trees
Chapter XX. The Dainty China Country
Chapter XXI. The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts
Chapter XXII. The Country of the Quadlings
Chapter XXIII. Glinda The Good Witch Grants Dorothy's Wish
Chapter XXIV. 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
Chapter I
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 not gray; he was a little black
dog, with long silky hair and small black eyes that twinkled merrily on
either side of his funny, wee nose. Toto played all day long, and
Dorothy played with him, and loved him dearly.
Today, however, they were not playing. Uncle Henry sat upon the
doorstep and looked anxiously at the sky, which was even grayer than
usual. Dorothy stood in the door with Toto in her arms, and looked at
the sky too. Aunt Em was washing the dishes.
From the far north they heard a low wail of the wind, and Uncle Henry
and Dorothy could see where the long grass bowed in waves before the
coming storm. There now came a sharp whistling in the air from the
south, and as they turned their eyes that way they saw ripples in the
grass coming from that direction also.
Suddenly Uncle Henry stood up.
"There's a cyclone coming, Em," he called to his wife. "I'll go look
after the stock." Then he ran toward the sheds where the cows and
horses were kept.
Aunt Em dropped her work and came to the door. One glance told her of
the danger close at hand.
"Quick, Dorothy!" she screamed. "Run for the cellar!"
Toto jumped out of Dorothy's arms and hid under the bed, and the girl
started to get him. Aunt Em, badly frightened, threw open the trap door
in the floor and climbed down the ladder into the small, dark hole.
Dorothy caught Toto at last and started to follow her aunt. When she
was halfway across the room there came a great shriek from the wind,
and the house shook Next |