Book Home Books Information Oz books
Oz books
The Oz books are a series of books, which begin with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and deal with the "history" of the Land of Oz. The Oz books were originally created by author L. Frank Baum, who went on to write fourteen total Oz books. Although most of the Oz books are strictly adventures, Baum—as well as many later Oz authors—styled themselves as "Royal Historians" of Oz. Later authors wrote 36 other "official" books after Baum's death. Many other authors have put their own twists on Oz, notably Gregory Maguire's revisionist Wicked.
Background
The first fourteen books by the original author, L. Frank Baum, another nineteen by Ruth Plumly Thompson, and another seven books by various other authors comprise the "Famous Forty", which is considered the classic original series (though many inconsistencies make it difficult to call it canonical). Most of the books in the "Famous Forty" were published by Reilly and Britton, (later Reilly and Lee).
Other books were printed later, by different publishing houses. As the earlier works have fallen out of copyright (including all of L. Frank Baum's titles), numerous other books have been written in the series by many authors and publishers, some of whom continue to publish new works today.
In fact, so many additional Oz books have been written, that merely attempting to document all such books is a weighty endeavor in and of itself (see: External links). Some small publishers have even specialised in publishing Oz pastiches, of which the most commercial are probably Books of Wonder, Hungry Tiger Press, and The International Wizard of Oz Club—and perhaps the graphic novels of Eric Shanower. There are also alternative series of Oz books, such as the sequels written in Russian by Alexander Volkov, or the books of Frank Baum's great-grandson, Roger S. Baum. Then there are the "revisionist" books of Gregory Maguire. The following list therefore contains Oz books written by the authors of the first "Famous Forty" (including those published in later years). Others, including Volkov and Maguire's are listed below.