The Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion have entered the collective consciousness of childhood. Even those boys and girls who have never heard of L. Frank Baum know Dorothy and her odd companions. Of course Baum wrote much more than
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) and more even than his sixteen Oz books; indeed, several of his other fairy tales are as fine as anything he wrote about the Land of Oz. But it is as the Royal Historian of Oz that L. Frank Baum has been most affectionately remembered.
The discovery of Oz came relatively late in its creator's life. Lyman Frank Baum was born on 15 May 1856 in the small northern New York town of Chittenango, a few miles east of Syracuse. His father was by training and trade a cooper, but his fortunes changed in 1860 when he joined the Pennsylvania oil rush. He returned a wealthy man, invested heavily in Syracuse real estate, and removed his family to Rose Lawn, a beautiful residential farm a mile and a half outside the city.
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