SOURCE: Riley, Michael O. “Concentration on Oz: 1907-1910.” In Oz and Beyond: The Fantasy World of L. Frank Baum, pp. 128-67. Lawrence, Kans.: University Press of Kansas, 1997.

In the following excerpt, Riley focuses on Baum's numerous Oz sequels.

To have pleased you, to have interested you, to have won your friendship, and perhaps your love, through my stories, is to my mind as great an achievement as to become President of the United States. Indeed, I would much rather be your story-teller, under these conditions, than to be the President. So you have helped me to fulfill my life's ambition, and I am more grateful to you, my dears, than I can express in words.

It's no use; no use at all. The children won't let me stop telling tales of the Land of Oz. I know lots of other stories, and I hope to tell them, some...